


Skaian Shuffle

by digimaniac33



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, F/F, Rare Pairing, with cameos by many many other characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-07 04:23:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 44,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3161084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/digimaniac33/pseuds/digimaniac33
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Skaia, Detective Jane Crocker and Legislacerator Terezi Pyrope are all that stand between the city and the criminals that want to rule it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nanrea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nanrea/gifts).



> All your prompts were incredible! I hope you like what I did with this one.

The label on the door read _Terezi Pyrope, Legislacerator_ , and that was all she needed. Humans liked to throw around their degrees, carapacians needed to list every single one of their names, and leprechauns would include all sorts of symbols that meant who knew what, but Terezi was first, foremost, and always a legislacerator and nothing more.

Sometimes being a legislacerator meant months, or even sweeps, of hunting their quarry to the ends of the universe, dragging them back, and serving them to justice in the court of law, but mostly it involved paperwork. Lots, and lots, and _lots_ of paperwork. This precinct was especially complicated, seeing as it served Skaia, the metropolis of the biggest hub planet in this part of the galaxy. Everyone came through Skaia sooner or later, and they brought every crime along with them.

On this particular day, Terezi was filling out yet another form explaining her use of force in a recent arrest when a pair of voices drifted through her partially open door.

"Pyrope's still here? What, was she hatched behind that desk?"

"Nah, she leaves every now and then. Couple orbits back, she was in here even less than you."

"Whoa, really? That's saying something!"

Terezi recognized those voices - one belonged to a new kid over in the human legal department (clerk or legal aide or something, humans had way too many categories), and the other was a carapacian cop who'd bottomed out ten orbits ago and didn't have the decency to quit.

"You're telling me! It's pretty bizarre how much she's been around recently, really. Back then, it seemed like she checked in, put in half a workday, and checked out."

"That's crazy talk. What happened, then? Why'd she become such a workaholic?"

"Well, rumor has it she had a spade that turned on her. Totally tore her life apart. Now work's all she's got."

"Shit, really? Man, now I feel sorry for her."

That was enough. Terezi stood from her desk, marched to her door and threw it completely open. The human and carapacian were standing a few doors down. The scent of terror on their faces brought a vicious grin to Terezi's face.

"Greetings, my wonderful colleagues!" She exclaimed as she marched towards them, tapping her cane along in front of her. Her nose served her well enough, but the cane worked very nicely at intimidating others. "Such a wonderful day for bringing justice down upon the criminal element, don't you think?"

The human merely gulped in fear, but the carapacian tried to smile. "Uh, yeah, definitely a great day for, uh, that. Yeah."

"Excellent." She stopped before them in parade rest, her hands clutching her cane. "So the pair of you must be discussing extremely vital crime-related subjects, since any other conversations would be a horrible waste of such a wonderful day. And wasting a day like today," she grinned further, "would be a _crime_."

Now the carapacian was nearly frozen, but he still managed to say, "Y-y-yes, it w-would, huh? W-w-w-waste of tax money, talking about a-anything else. We should get back to, uh, the, uh, the crime we were d-d-discussing." He then jabbed his elbow into the human's side, eliciting a squeaked "Yeah!" from her.

"Good. I'll leave you to your work, then, as I'm sure you'd leave me to mine." She lingered just a second longer, relishing the fear rolling off of them, before smartly stepping on her way. Behind her, she could smell their intense relief flooding the hallway. It smelled good.

Instead of returning to her office, she'd decided to stop by the "bullpen" (a human word for the collection of desks used by their "detectives") to see about collecting a new crime to solve. She'd been working very diligently and needed a new case to focus on. She was sure the police chief would be happy to oblige.

The Skaian justice system was an odd mishmash of half a dozen cultural standards. Most prominent were human and troll ideals, as they had been the first settlers on the planet Veil, but the centuries of existence brought more species and more kinds of justice to consider. Sometimes Terezi wished she'd stayed on Alternia proper, or at least one of the Alternian Empire's central worlds, because justice there was much more clear-cut in her mind, but Skaia provided a challenge that she couldn't back away from.

This meant that, while she was officially an Alternian legislacerator, and therefore an investigative and judicial force unto herself, she commonly found herself working alongside human detectives, carapacian regulators, leprechaun arbiters, and any other number of judicial forces. Interspecies pairings were created in response to specific cases, though, such as a crime that affected a wide range of peoples, or interspecies violence, and these partnerships generally lasted only as long as the case they worked. Thus Terezi had worked with a lot of people over her fifteen orbits as a legislacerator, but none of them were truly her partner.

She entered the bullpen and found it a chaotic mess of people, as usual. Officials of all sorts scurried from here to there, citizens complained loudly about injustice in their neighborhoods, and criminals were shuffled along to their holding cells. She breathed it all in for a few seconds. This was where she belonged, chasing down criminals in the name of justice, no matter what some busybody coworkers or friends or former quadrants had to say about it. This was her home.

Her moment of sentimentality finished, Terezi walked to the police chief's office. She gave the door three rapid knocks with her cane, and a voice within called out, "Get in here, Pyrope." She obliged quite quickly.

Inside, the police chief xirself sat behind xir desk. Xie was a dark-skinned middle-aged human who'd been working for the Skaian legal system for over twenty human years now. That was roughly ten Alternian sweeps, and just over twenty three Veilian orbits. Veilian citizens got used to making temporal calculations in their heads, or they didn't last long.

The police chief wasn't alone, though. Seated in one of the other chairs in the office was another human. This one had lighter skin and short-cropped black hair, as well as bright blue eyes. Terezi had never met this one before. She gave the human a once-over with her nose, while the human gave her a friendly grin. She did not smile back.

The police chief stood and gestured Terezi towards a chair. "I'm glad you're here, Pyrope. I was just about to send for you. This is Detective Jane Crocker, she's just transferred to our district. Detective Crocker, this is Legislacerator Terezi Pyrope."

"Hello, Legislacerator Pyrope," Detective Crocker said as she stood up and extended her hand out. Terezi shook it briskly before taking her own seat. "Looking forward to seeing how things get done in this stretch of the galaxy."

Terezi couldn't leave an opening like that alone. "Afraid I can't help you with that, since I'm blind myself."

The detective flushed. "Oh, I-I didn't - "

"Leave it, Detective. Pyrope's just messing with you." The chief sat at xir desk again and picked up two folders. "Now, we've been getting reports of drug deals, slavery rings, gambling dens, tricky homicides - you name a crime, it's probably been done, and all of them seem to be connected. You know what that means."

Terezi nodded grimly. "A new gang of mobsters has set up shop."

"Right. We haven't got much info on them yet, but their MO with murders seems to be leaving a cueball on the scene. Word on the street says they call themselves the Felt. Too many crimes for this to be a small group, too, so you two have got your work cut out for you. Crocker, you're new around here, but you've got an excellent record following you, and I think this city could use a fresh pair of eyes - " Terezi snorted derisively from her seat. The chief ignored her and went on, "So you've got point on this one. Pyrope, I know you've got a truckload of other cases on your docket, but give this one everything you've got, okay? This one feels like it's gonna be a doozy, and it's already pretty big."

Terezi and the detective both stood up and accepted their case files. "I'll give it my utmost attention, Chief," Terezi said as she saluted. The chief always appreciated it when she followed protocol, since she insisted on breaking it just as often.

"I won't let you down, Chief." Detective Crocker saluted as well. Terezi studied the human again. The chief wasn't inclined to charity, and this assignment wasn't an easy one. This Detective Crocker must be good, then, to earn such a case her first day on the job in a new city. She might be a force to be reckoned with.

* * *

When the chief dismissed them, the legislacerator strode quickly out of the office. Jane deduced she was most likely returning to her office to review the file, as she was planning to do the same. It would have been convenient to discuss it together, though, as they were supposed to work the case as partners. She frowned at the legislacerator's disappearing back.

"Don't let Pyrope get to you, Crocker. She's insane, but she does good work," the police chief said as xie shuffled around more paperwork.

"Understood, Chief." Jane saluted again and began walking back to her desk. This was her first case in Skaia, and she wanted to hit it out of the park. Dealing with a prickly alien would be a challenge, but one to which she was definitely equal.

She arrived at her desk, which was of course incredibly sparse, unlike the desks of her neighboring detectives. She would have stacks of paperwork soon enough, but she didn't plan on bringing many personal effects. This desk was her workspace, and cluttering it up with personal photos wouldn't help her solve cases any faster.

Jane started reading the file the chief had given her, reading over the various crimes that had been popping up in connection to these so-called Felts. She'd only gotten a few pages in when her personal phone started to ring. "Detective Jane Crocker," Jane answered automatically.

"Shit, Janey, I know I called your cell this time! Don't give me the whole detective thing!"

"Roxy! Hi!" Jane smiled and relaxed immediately. "Sorry, I was just given an extremely juicy case."

"Yeah, yeah, super-cop Crocker is on the case, so criminals of the night beware. Criminals of the day, too, she ain't picky."

"Isn't, Roxy. The word is not ain't, it's isn't."

"Janey, Janey, Janey. You can take ain't away from me when I stop being the hottest hacker this side of Veil, and that just ain't gonna happen."

Jane sighed, but couldn't help chuckling as well. "Well, I suppose some grammatical errors are worth it for your friendship, hm?"

"You better believe it, buster." Jane could imagine Roxy leaning back in her chair. "So, how's the big city treatin' ya? Ain't she everything I told ya she'd be?"

Jane could tell Roxy was going to keep saying ain't just to bother her, so she elected to ignore it. "The 'big city' is fine, thanks. I'm glad you're here, though. I don't think I'd have felt as comfortable moving out here by myself if I didn't have someone like you here for me."

"Getting out of the 'burbs is gonna be good for you. Get you out from the scandalous family dramas and neighborly shootings, and start investigating some real crimes, like why the fuck the street lights ain't timed right."

"That's not exactly my jurisdiction, Roxy. I'd complain to someone like Dirk for that one."

Roxy sighed heavily. "As Dirk keeps telling me, he's a mechanical engineer, not a civics one. Guess civics engineers are the real losers in that field."

Jane chortled. "Well, as much as I would love to rag on absent engineers, I do have work to do."

"Right, right, defending the city with just the brains in your head." Jane heard the clacking of a keyboard in the background, meaning Roxy was getting back to her work as well - she worked from home as a freelance programmer, with some less sanctioned hacking done on the side. "You let me know if there's anything I can do to help you out, you hear?"

Flipping through the case report, Jane got an idea. "Actually, you might be able to help with something now. There's evidence that Posse, Inc. is a shell company connected to my case. Do you think you could wriggle into their computer systems and find some evidence for me?"

"Well, ain't it just your luck, wriggle is today's magic word. Give me two minutes and a drink, and I'll crack open that shell like the genius I am."

Her choice of words concerned Jane. "Roxy..."

"Oops." Jane could almost feel the wince from the other side. "Sorry, Janey, I meant like a soda or something. No wagon falling for me, I'm strapped in super tight and going nowhere."

Jane smiled in relief. "Alright. I trust you, it's just -"

"Warning signs and all that, I know. Go on, get back to work and let me do my magic."

"Thanks, Roxy. Let me know when you find something, okay?"

"No problemo. Laters, Janey."

Jane put her phone away and stretched her back out before diving back into the case file. With Roxy's help, this case would be solved in no time, and no thanks due to Legislacerator Pyrope.

* * *

The day passed quickly, and soon enough it was time to clock out. Jane rubbed her weary eyes, tired from staring at reports and computer screens all day. The Felt seemed to have their hands in _everything_ , so simply catching up on the work that had already been done was taking longer than she'd expected. _Exhausting myself right at the start won't solve the case, though_ , Jane thought to herself, and so she packed away her files for the night and headed home.

As she left the building, she nearly ran into a troll standing in a shadowed niche just outside the entrance. "Excuse me, I -" Jane started to apologize, but stopped when the troll turned around and stared with her blind eyes. It was Legislacerator Pyrope. "Ah, Legislacerator. Sorry, I didn't see you in the shadows there."

Pyrope cackled in her face. "Well, I didn't see you either, so that's no excuse!"

Jane flushed and bristled with annoyance, but forced herself to calm down. _We'll have to work together on this case eventually, so I can't let her get to me._ "I'm sorry for bumping into you, then. On your way home?"

"Against my will, yes." The legislacerator tapped her cane impatiently on the ground. "I'd much rather do my work at night, when any sensible troll is up and about, but you humans managed to force the entire organization to march to your rhythm, so to home and sopor I go."

Jane frowned. "It's not as though night and day are especially different here. The brightest days are a light twilight at best."

"It's the principle of the thing, Detective. Surely you understand principles?" Pyrope grinned at her viciously, and Jane suppressed a shudder. She'd grown up on a different part of Veil, in a neighborhood mostly populated by humans. There had been trolls here and there, and she knew they were just as rational as humans, but the legislacerator's grin reminded her of all the horror stories she'd heard of trolls on a murderous rampage.

Jane pushed that thought firmly away. Working with the legislacerator would mean trusting her, and thoughts like that wouldn't help at all. "I'll take your word for it. Did you have any thoughts on the Felt case? Perhaps we could share our conclusions thus far."

Legislacerator Pyrope swung her cane up and pointed it at Jane, who had to backpedal quickly to avoid getting smacked in the face. "I do not make any conclusions until the case is properly investigated. That is how justice is properly served to the criminal element!"

"Well, obviously I wasn't talking about final conclusions," Jane scowled. "I was talking -"

"Yes, you do too much of that. Too much talking, and not enough investigating." The legislacerator leaned in close, her manic grin inches from Jane's face. "Just do your job, _Detective_ , and leave me to do mine." With that, Legislacerator Pyrope abruptly turned and walked off, taking Jane's chance to get in the last word with her.

Jane stood in front of the police headquarters, shaking with suppressed emotions she could barely even name. Part of it was shame, for letting the legislacerator keep the upper hand during the entire conversation, and part was anger at the troll for her inflammatory manners.

Mostly, though, she felt a simple rush that motivated her to prove the legislacerator wrong.


	2. Chapter 2

Somewhere in Skaia, past the dark alleyways and neon lights, lay a grand mansion. This mansion was owned by an influential member of society, though if you asked anyone who that was, they wouldn't be able to tell you for certain. The mansion was well known, though, even if its owner was not, for its unique decorating scheme - everything, from the shingles on the roof to the bricks in the garden paths, was a different shade of green. This was the Emerald Mansion.

Few people would admit to being inside the Emerald Mansion, either because they wished to avoid being tied to its mysterious owner, or because they were dead. If one such visitor were to describe the mansion's interior, though, 'labyrinth' would be the first word that came to mind. Dozens of rooms were spread over five floors of space, with hallways placed at incongruous angles. Even some of its inhabitants didn't know the full layout, as several rooms were kept behind secret passages and doorways.

One such room was the host of a meeting. The room was kept in shadows, as the owner had a flare for the dramatic that often overruled the practical. The only light came from a flickering fireplace, whose dancing flames did not combat the darkness so much as define it. In front of the fireplace were two armchairs, in which sat two very important people, with important matters to discuss.

"While I know you'll always insist on meeting at these absurd hours, I'm afraid I'll never understand why," the figure in one armchair said.

Curls of smoke rose from the cigarette held by the carapacian woman in the other. "That smug, presumptive nature of yours is a disgusting habit I'll never understand, either."

"Yes, but you are doomed to a sad life, lacking the full knowledge that I possess, so your ignorance is understandable."

"Let's cut to the chase, shall we? Debating the futility of existence gets rather boring after the eighth time."

The figure chuckled. "Ah yes, impatience. A most unfortunate fault for a business mogul."

"Only unfortunate for those who don't understand the proper timing of these things. Now." The woman leaned forward, blowing her cigarette smoke into the air. "Is the transaction proceeding as planned?"

"Yes, yes, it's all obviously been well prepared. I was the coordinator of the event, after all."

"Your involvement has never been a guarantee of success. Or have you forgotten that business with the pirate already?"

The figure in the armchair had no face to make an expression with, but somehow the shift from patronizing amusement to cold anger was clear. "The pirate is no longer a concern, and she has no bearing on our mission here."

"I wish you'd stop referring to our plans as a mission. Makes it seem as though we're doing all this for some higher purpose than money and power."

"Oh but my dear, that is exactly why we are doing this." The figure leaned back and steepled its fingers in its lap. "Money and power are merely pleasant side effects."

"Whatever delusions you want to believe, I guess." The woman tapped her cigarette's ashes out onto the ashtray left for just such a purpose.

"Delusions are for those who don't know what to believe, and I, of course, know everything. Which reminds me - there's a little fly buzzing around our network. I would be most gracious if you would take care of it."

"Can't take care of it yourself?" the woman scoffed. "Fine, I'll clip the fly's wings. So long as our plan goes off without a hitch."

"That goes without saying. After all, you are my guest, and I am an excellent host."

* * *

Jane stared at the computer screen again. She'd been reading reports for the last hour, and she was quickly reaching the point when her brain would simply turn off and she'd miss anything important in the cases she was trying to review. She realized this was already starting to happen when she had to reread the same sentence three times before understanding what it said. She groaned and took her glasses off, rubbing her forehead to help fend off the headache she could feel building up.

Luckily, her cell phone rang, giving her a break from catching up on casework. She answered it, saying, "Hello?"

"Hey Janey, got a sec to spare for the hacker who's hacked your case wide open?"

"Roxy! I wasn't expecting to hear back from you so quickly."

"That's what I get paid the big moneys for. Nobody faster or better than Rolal."

Jane smiled. "Yes, yes, the check is heading off to the post office as we speak. Now, what's the scoop?"

"Mmm, gotta love that old-school detective talk," Roxy said. "You were right, Posse Inc. is super sketch - tons of product coming in and going out, but the manifests all seem pretty bogus. Like, farming equipment that's really off its weight estimates, that kinda stuff. The companies it's trading with don't seem like the types to buy or sell what they're buying and selling, either."

"I see." _Obviously part of the smuggling ring, then_ , Jane thought.

"Not even the best part, though. Guess what's going down tonight?"

"What?"

"They're getting a new shipment in at one of the warehouses near the port. Got the address and everything."

"Roxy, that's incredible!" Jane said, as she started to put her files away. She would need to follow this lead right away.

"Just another day for Skaia's finest. That's finest as in looks, of course, though you ladies and lads in blue do just fine for yourselves."

"We don't all wear blue, you know."

"Yeah, but if I started listing off all the colors the police in these parts wear, I'd just end up singing that song from the musical Jake dragged us to. The coat with all the colors on it, you remember that?"

Jane rolled her eyes. "I was happy to forget it, really."

"C'mon, that one wasn't nearly as bad as that spider one he brought us to."

"Roxy, as much as I'd love to take a stroll down musical memory lane with you, I'd rather have that address." Jane got her pencil and notepad ready. Plenty of cops preferred their high-tech devices for taking notes, but paper and pencil had been good enough for humans for hundreds of years, and Jane believed that if it wasn't broken, you shouldn't fix it.

Roxy sighed and rattled off the address for Jane. "It's totes a crime to interrupt a stroll like that, Janey. You should arrest yourself for crimes against friendship."

"I'll pick up that case as soon as I've finished this one, how's that?" After looking up the address online, Jane shut her computer down. "I have to go, Roxy, this is too big a chance to let slip away."

"Yeah, yeah. I'll call you if I find anything else, okay?"

"Call tomorrow, tonight I'll have plenty else on my mind. And Roxy?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

"Hey, no sweat. Gotta help a friend solve her first case in the big city, right? Otherwise I'd be the one up for being a traitor to this friendship we have built so strong."

Jane laughed. "I suppose you're right, but I must thank you anyway. I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay?"

"Yup, talk to you then." Roxy hung up, and Jane gathered the last of her belongings. The warehouse was a decent distance from headquarters, and she wanted to set up a stakeout long before any shipments would arrive.

She was just leaving the bullpen when a clacking cane caught her attention. "Detective Blueberry Muffin! You seem to be in quite the rush." Legislacerator Pyrope came to a stop slightly too close to Jane, who backed away a little. "Leave your human oven on?"

"Hello, Legislacerator Pyrope." Jane chose to ignore the stupid jab about a "human" oven, but she still thought, _Troll ovens are not functionally different, adding a human in front is just ridiculous!_ "Actually, I have a lead on our case that I was just going to follow up on. So, if you'll excuse me, I -"

"A lead? Excellent! As you have the lead, you lead the way." The legislacerator gestured grandly toward the exit with her cane.

Jane frowned. "Excuse me?" She could tell what the troll had implied, but she couldn't quite believe it.

"Apologies, I'll try to use simpler words so your human brain can keep up. Let's go, before this lead of yours dries up."

The legislacerator started to move toward the door, but Jane planted herself in her path. "Legislacerator Pyrope, I don't recall inviting you along on this investigation."

"Oh?" The troll's wide grin didn't surprise her as much as it had the day before, though it was still unnerving. "I seem to recall a certain human attempting some form of collaboration just the other day."

Jane refused to back down "That was before a certain troll made it very clear she wasn't planning on cooperating at all," she said, staring into the legislacerator's red lenses. "Each to their own, correct?"

Legislacerator Pyrope cackled. "Very true, very true! But you seem very excited about this lead of yours, which means you believe it to be a very substantial one. That means I must come along to prevent any mishaps that may cost us the trial."

Jane's blood began to boil. To imply she would mishandle the investigation that badly... ! "I would never compromise this case, and your accusations otherwise are completely unfounded!"

"I'd love to believe you, but the evidence against you is simply insurmountable. Well, against your type."

"My type?" Jane almost squeaked in anger.

"Yes, you detective types. The rules concerning evidence acquisition are incredibly intricate, yet every detective I've worked with insists on running roughshod over every single one of them. Much safer for me to come along and do the work myself, to be certain it's done properly. Besides," the legislacerator added, "as a new citizen of the city, you obviously can't understand it as well as I do. Now, that's enough arguing. On to the investigation!" Legislacerator Pyrope pushed Jane aside with her cane and walked through the exit.

The detective stumbled, but didn't fall. She did take a few seconds to process everything that had just happened, though. When she'd finally convinced herself that the last few minutes had really happened, she felt her headache from earlier start to return. "This is going to be a horrible mistake," she groaned under her breath.

* * *

_This may have been a mistake_ , Terezi thought to herself. She was crouched next to the detective outside the warehouse the human's contact had led them to. They had been situated farther away earlier, when several leprechauns were unloading cargo from a tramp spaceship. That alone pointed to nefarious schemes afoot - most businesses preferred cargo liners for their transportation needs, as the legality was more clearly defined. Using a tramp service wasn't unheard of, but it certainly wasn't the cleanest business practice.

The cargo had been unloaded into the warehouse and the spaceship had flown away about an hour ago, and all that time the pair had stayed in their hiding spot (an alleyway overshadowed by cargo containers that didn't block line of sight, or smell). When no further activity occurred, though, the human had moved out, and Terezi had no choice but to follow. Now they were crouched just around the corner from the warehouse's entrance, and the legislacerator had a sinking feeling that she knew what Detective Crocker was planning.

The detective herself was checking to make sure the coast was clear. When she was satisfied, she closed in on the door, Terezi a few steps behind her. Once she was at the door, Jane pulled out a set of tools that made Terezi doubt her nose for the first time in a very long time. "Lockpicks? An officer of the law, resorting to lockpicks? This is exactly the kind of legal shenanigans I was referring to at headquarters," she whispered fiercely.

The detective began working on the lock as she whispered back, "The use of lockpicks when pursuing a clear and obvious crime is perfectly acceptable in court."

Terezi checked the loading area, making sure they were still alone and wishing she was willing to risk getting into a scuffle. "But there is no clear and obvious crime in progress here! All we have is your human friend's word that anything remotely illegal is happening, which is not a probable cause strong enough to justify breaking into a warehouse."

"That is not the crime I'm talking about," Detective Crocker muttered as she carefully twisted the lock. "Those workers were using equipment with expired licenses. I didn't have an opportunity to talk to them before they locked this door. Now," she slowly opened the door, cognizant of potential squeaks, "we can go find those nice gentlemen and explain the situation. Of course, if we find any evidence of another crime while we're in here, we have a duty to investigate those crimes, as well." The detective placed her lockpicks back in her jacket and started creeping into the warehouse, flashlight and pistol at the ready. Terezi followed her in, grinding her teeth. _How in hell am I supposed to win the trial with this detective's tricks?_

Inside, the warehouse was filled with cargo containers that created long, hemmed-in alleys and shadows from the moonslight coming in from the upper story windows. By the smell of things, the detective had plenty of light to see where she was going, but not much else. Terezi was often grateful for her odd way of sensing the world; now was another of those times.

The pair crept along quietly, keeping ears, eyes, and nose open for any evidence of occupants, or crimes being committed. When they reached a major fork, Detective Crocker gestured Terezi in one direction as she started going down the other. Terezi considered following the detective out of spite, but this was a very large warehouse and there was a better chance of finding evidence if they split up.

When the quiet shuffle of the detective's feet faded away, Terezi was left alone with the quiet warehouse. She moved along slowly, holding her cane in a ready position. They hadn't seen the workers leave, but the warehouse had to have other exits than the one they watched. The odds she'd run into anyone else were pretty low, really.

She turned a corner and cursed her luck, because sitting between two sets of cargo containers were two leprechauns. One wore a solid-colored orange hat, while the other wore a striped maroon one. She seemed to have interrupted them in the middle of a jig - she didn't know which was worse, getting caught or witnessing weird alien romantic rituals. As the one with the striped hat leapt at her with his fist, she decided it was definitely getting caught.

Terezi barely dodged the fist and gave her assailant a whack on the back with her cane to send him to the ground. She smelled the other scrambling for his gun, and decided it was high time to get out of there. She ran back the way she came, taking the corner just as a gunshot rang out behind her. She ducked her head automatically and sprinted away as fast as she could.

The labyrinthian layout of the warehouse helped her, since the pursuing leprechaun couldn't get a good shot on her. She hoped the other leprechaun was a really slow runner, though, because taking both of them on was not something she looked forward to. There wasn't much of a chance he'd been knocked out - leprechauns were incredibly hardy as a species. She still only smelled one pursuer, though, and she could only hope that would continue.

As she neared the door to the outside, she started hearing gunshots coming from in front of her. _Do they have soundproofing in here or something?_ The bizarre thought made Terezi want to laugh, but she knew that was just her way of reacting to being shot at. Right now she needed to save her breath for running. Laughing could wait until she was outside and not about to die.

She rounded a corner and found Detective Crocker running from the other side, the human's half-ducked stance nearly identical to her own. Obviously she'd had just about as much luck as Terezi. The detective looked Terezi in the eyes, but instead of grinning inanely or whatever else humans did when in danger, she just kept sprinting. The reason for her intense focus came barreling quickly behind her - the detective's leprechaun was much faster than those chasing Terezi, it seemed. _Either that or she's much slower_ , Terezi thought.

Both of the officers reached the alley that led towards the outside door at the same time. Terezi's pursuer was just then turning the corner, while the one who'd been following Detective Crocker was just a few steps behind the pair. Behind him came yet another one wearing a solid-colored yellow hat - this was apparently the one who'd been firing at the detective earlier. He was strongly favoring one leg, as though someone had rearranged his kneecap, but still running at a good pace despite that. Terezi's respect for the detective increased, but only a little bit. Injuring leprechauns like that was not an easy thing to do.

Terezi's attention turned back to the detective running alongside her. She seemed a bit winded, but no more than Terezi. In her hand, she held some sort of container. "Would that be an updated license for that equipment you were talking about earlier, Detective Crocker?" Terezi huffed out between breaths.

The detective rolled her eyes, then ducked as a shot rang out. "No, this happens to be a little more crucial to the case we are actually investigating. Unless you'd like to discuss the expired licenses with the gentlemen chasing us."

"I thought you were taking the lead on that one. You seemed so enthusiastic about it earlier, when you were completely flouting judicial procedure in the name of outdated bureaucracy." Another shot rang out, and Terezi's reflexive dodge caused her to bump into the detective, tripping them both. Terezi was back on her feet in almost the same instant, but the human seemed to have the wind knocked out of her.

Terezi had little time to consider her partner's status, since the leprechaun with the blue-striped hat was nearly on top of them. She was just able to get her cane ready before she had to dodge a massive punch from her opponent. The wind from the punch alone was enough to throw her a little off-balance - getting hit by the brute would not end well. Her cane wouldn't do much against him, either. He wasn't larger than the leprechaun she'd downed earlier, but she wouldn't get a chance to surprise him. When she smelled his accomplice limping quickly up behind him, she realized what she needed to do for her best chance at victory.

She dodged another punch from the big guy and tried to get herself into the yellow guy's sight. Behind her, the detective had pulled herself to an upright position, her wheezing breath a clear indicator that she wasn't ready to run just yet. That was just as well, since Terezi had a plan that would help them both get out of there. She kept dodging punches and kicks from the huge leprechaun, until finally she had her back to one wall, the big guy was standing across from her, and the yellow one was aiming right at her head.

The timing worked out perfectly - as the leprechaun with the gun was pulling the trigger, the other one was lunging for her with one of his powerhouse punches. She dodged away from the punch towards the detective, leaving the big guy to take the bullet for her. He yelled out in pain and dropped to the floor, while Terezi helped the detective to her feet. "Ready to run again, Detective Blueberry Muffin?" Terezi's manic grin earned her a reproving glare from the human, but she started running again nevertheless.

They made it outside without any more problems, but the leprechauns were still chasing them, so they hid in the same alleyway they'd stayed in while keeping surveillance earlier. Both of them tried to get their breath back quietly while the leprechauns searched the area.

When the search party moved away from their hiding spot, Terezi said, "I'm glad that was worth alerting our enemies to our investigation and not a complete waste of our time. I've missed getting shot at."

"Oh, be quiet, that was a perfectly good lead, and I found out what they've been smuggling in through here." She opened the container she'd been holding onto throughout the entire chase and showed its contents to Terezi - a small white pistol. "This is a very high-end weapon, the sort being used by you trolls out on your frontier planets. Very good at taking down the opposition, no matter what they may be."

Terezi sniffed at the pistol. "Doesn't smell like very much. Besides, what would you know about high-grade weaponry? Not exactly the sort of thing a detective needs to worry about."

"When these things start turning up in your neighborhood, a good detective learns everything she can about them." Detective Crocker said and grimly closed the container. "I was living in another part of Veil until recently, and these weapons were starting to pop up here and there. They can do some very nasty things to the unwary. There was only a small box of these in that place, but even one will cause enough trouble."

Terezi quirked her mouth. "I suppose I'll have to trust your assessment on that for now. I don't think this really justifies getting shot at, though."

The detective started to argue, but as she began to speak, the leprechauns' voices came closer again, so she merely leveled Terezi with another one of her glares. Terezi liked her glares, they made you feel like the detective would really like to see you set on fire as soon as possible. She felt a grin starting, wondering what she could do to get another of those glares aimed at her, but the leprechauns decided to stop just outside their alley, and getting caught by these guys wouldn't be worth it.

"I'm tellin' yas, they wouldn't stick 'round here none!" The orange-hatted leprechaun yelled, waving his gun around in the air. "Those broads are long gone, and our merchandise with them!"

"The boss ain't gonna like it one bit, though," the leprechaun with the striped maroon hat said - apparently he'd finally caught up with the others. "Lettin' some outsiders get away with our goods like that."

The yellow hat leprechaun shifted from side to side. "'Snot like we didn't try to stop them or nothin'. They got Sawbuck, and there ain't gonna be much the doc can do for him quick."

The orange leprechaun sighed and rubbed at his forehead. "Shit, and they was wantin' him for the big party goin' down next week. I ain't lookin' forward to reportin' this one bit."

"We's got each other on this one, buddy." The big one with the striped hat started patting the orange one's shoulder as they walked away. "Ain't no way they gonna kill all of us at once."

Terezi watched them walk back to the warehouse, until her attention slowly shifted toward the detective. She was still intently focused on the retreating leprechauns, her bright blue eyes narrowed and calculating. Her short black hair was mussed from their extended chase, and her shirt was almost soaked through with sweat, showing off her stocky yet muscular physique.

Terezi realized she wanted those intense eyes focused on her. She wanted to know what those arms could do in a real fight, not the scramble they'd just gotten out of. More than anything else, though, she wanted to find out if the detective tasted like the blueberry muffins Terezi had named her for.

When that realization dawned in her head, Terezi could think only one thing - _Shit._


	3. Chapter 3

Jane walked along the street slowly, sore muscles protesting her evening's activity. She hadn't gained more than a few bruises, but all that running and the tumble she'd taken at the end took their toll. Beside her, the legislacerator strode confidently, apparently without any injuries holding her back. She couldn't believe the other troll had run just as much her, fought some of those blasted leprechauns, and didn't even have a limp to show for it. It just wasn't fair.

They were both heading for the closest transport station after dropping by the precinct to turn in the evidence Jane had picked up and to write up a quick report of the evening's events. Jane had almost argued for heading straight home, but the legislacerator had started straight for the precinct once they determined the leprechauns were really gone, and taking valuable evidence home was just asking for trouble. She had been fantasizing about her bed for the last hour, though, and she was definitely ready to get home for some real sleep.

"Well, detective, did you understand what those miscreants meant?" Legislacerator Pyrope's voice broke through Jane's idle dreams about the warm blankets that awaited her. "I'm sure an officer of your caliber caught what their conversation was about."

Jane scowled. Why did she have to question everything about her investigative abilities? "Obviously the Felt is planning some sort of huge event that will be happening next week. A child could figure out as much."

"A child could get that far, yes, but I certainly hope you operate on a higher level than a child, Detective Blueberry Muffin." The legislacerator's tapping cane beat a tattoo that bore into Jane's mind, exacerbating the headache she'd been holding back. "They revealed so much more than that, you know."

Jane massaged her temple, trying to relieve the tension in her head. "There's no need to play games, Legislacerator Pyrope. Explain what you mean or just... be quiet." She'd thought about using stronger words, but getting into a fight about that just wasn't worth it.

Even without looking, Jane could tell the troll was grinning again, or smirking, really. She would give so much to wipe that smirk off her face for good. "Well, I must say I'm surprised, Detective. There's no shame in admitting your failures, though - you should be proud, in fact."

"Pyrope! Just... explain what you're talking about." Legislacerator was far too long to say when snapping at someone. Lots of troll words were like that - it was astounding how they managed to stay angry with each other when it took twice as long just to say a few words. Perhaps that was why they were so much more violent than humans, so they could avoid talking.

"Alright, Detective, I will schoolfeed you on what our hapless criminals let slip." Infuriatingly, Legislacerator Pyrope stopped in her tracks, holding her cane in front of her as though she were in front of a judge and jury. Jane seriously considered walking on and leaving her there, explanation or no explanation, but any insights were worth it, even if it involved waiting on a smug, bothersome troll of a troll. Sighing, Jane stopped and faced the legislacerator. "There is indeed a large event in the works next week, but it is not just the criminal element who are planning something! Our illustrious city has a significant event of its own happening, a very large and fancy one!"

Now Jane understood what the legislacerator was talking about. "You mean the ambassador's gala, don't you? The one hosted by the, er, dimencetaceans." The dimencetaceans were a species that hailed from a newly explored sector who were hoping to establish good relations with the species who lived here. They were... well, honestly, they were space whales. There simply wasn't any better way to describe them. "Do you think the Felt are planning something to take advantage of the distraction?"

"Perhaps, yes. Or they may be planning something for the gala itself. There's no way to be certain as of yet, though I would personally place my caegars on the gala. Plenty of politicians, bigwigs, and celebrities to blackmail, threaten, and bribe." Satisfied she'd made her point, the legislacerator began to walk again. "As such, I believe we should plan to go undercover at this gala, to see if we may sniff out the Felt's leaders. Such an opportunity would not easily come again, I think."

"That sounds reasonable." Jane wasn't so certain the Felt were planning to target the gala itself, but it did make sense that the leaders could use the event as an opportunity to throw some bigger plan in motion. After all, it would be hosted at the dimencetacean embassy, meaning its security forces would be focused on the party and not on the critical documents housed within. The embassy was also located in lower orbit, which meant the guests would be dependent on emergency ships if anything were to go wrong. It certainly wouldn't hurt to investigate, especially if they also warned the chief to toughen up patrols around the city. As they arrived at the transport station, Jane realized, "You know, I don't know if I have anything on hand to wear for a formal gala."

Legislacerator Pyrope grinned at her, but something about it seemed different than the others she'd flashed at Jane. "Detective, you could wear whatever you want and you would still sweep everyone off their feet." With that, she briskly turned and walked off towards the section of the station that would take her home.

Jane stayed frozen where she was, her mind processing the legislacerator's words. Were they some sort of jab over how she'd tripped in the warehouse? That wasn't even her fault; Legislacerator Pyrope had barreled into her. But then, had she actually given her a... compliment? Not just any sort of compliment, either, but a flirtatious one?

 _I do not have enough sleep to deal with this_ , Jane decided as she started moving again. _I will go home, I will fall asleep on my wonderful bed, and I will think about weird aliens and their inscrutable actions tomorrow._ With thoughts of bizarre partners placed out of her head, Jane spent the entire trip home thinking about the frozen meal waiting for her and the down comforter she'd had since childhood.

Being on a late night train, she did spare some thought to her fellow passengers, though, since there was no guarantee any of them would be entirely friendly to an off-duty detective. The car of the magtrain she rode was mostly devoid of others, though - there was one chelonian napping in a corner, and a pair of squiddles talking quietly to each other at the other end. Even when whispering, though, squiddles tended towards very high-pitched voices, so Jane was grateful when her short journey came to an end. _Magtrains are simply marvelous_ , she thought as she got off and left her fellow passengers behind.

The magtrains were the veins of Skaia, making it possible for its inhabitants to move from one end to the other faster than more traditional technology allowed - a very good thing, seeing as Skaia was a gigantic metropolis by any culture's standards. Using the magtrains was the only way to get from one sector to another without hours of traveling. They ran often enough to cut down on transportation frustration, too. Jane had wondered once or twice since she'd first visited Skaia whether or not there was some sort of magic happening there, but it wasn't worth the investigation yet, and besides, magic was clearly fake.

The technology, however it worked, allowed her to live farther out in one of Skaia's more restful residential sectors. Her neighborhood had a mix of aliens and humans, as most of Skaia did, but nearly everyone who lived there was inclined towards quiet and calm. It was a peaceful retreat that she was already learning to appreciate a great deal, even after only a few days on the job. Her apartment was also very close to the transport station, a huge blessing on a night like this one.

Jane shuffled up the steps towards her apartment, the night's events weighing on her heavily now that her goal was within reach. _Food and bed, food and bed, food and bed_ , she chanted to herself mentally to gather the strength needed to get home. When she got to her floor, though, she saw her neighbor, a very nice jadeblooded troll named Kanaya, struggling with some grocery bags. "Here, let me help," Jane jumped forward, exhaustion pushed to the back of her mind.

Jane grabbed two of the bags, allowing Kanaya to unlock her door without threat of avalanching groceries. "Thanks," she said while retrieving the bags Jane had rescued, "I suppose I could have simply put them down, but after walking all the way from the store it seemed a little like giving up."

Jane smiled. "Yes, and we can't let the groceries win. That would invite anarchy and ruin."

"Yes, I'm glad you agree," Kanaya smiled back, and Jane couldn't help but compare her smile to Terezi's wild grin. Kanaya's smile was very pleasant, but also less... exciting, and Jane found herself missing that a little. "Well, thank you for coming to my rescue. I'm sure you've had a long day already, I wouldn't want to keep you from your respite platform."

"Respite... oh, my bed, you mean." Some trolls had a difficult time learning human vocabulary for some reason - Jane had heard it was because human words resembled incredibly formal troll words, but that seemed far too silly to be true. "Yes, I've been looking forward to getting some sleep for quite a while now. But actually," Jane realized suddenly, "I'd like to ask a favor of you."

Kanaya blinked at her. "Now? I suppose I could help with something in your home or -"

"Ah, no, not right this moment, sorry!" Jane laughed a little. "No, no, I want your help picking out a formal gown for something I'm going to attend in the line of duty."

"Oh!" Kanaya smiled brightly. "I would love to help with that, yes. What will you be attending, if I may ask?"

Jane smiled and shook her head. "Sorry, but it's police business. All I can really say is that it's very formal and that I have nothing appropriate."

"Alright. Let me think..." Kanaya stood in thought, grocery bags still in her arms. Jane felt a little guilty asking this of her so suddenly, but seeing her right then was rather serendipitous. "I think I can close the shop for a day this weekend, if that's not too soon?" Kanaya was a florist who ran her own shop in the neighborhood. She and Jane had chatted about it a little when Jane had moved in - Kanaya had brought over a housewarming plant and Jane liked to know her neighbors.

"No, I have a day off in a couple of days, so that would be perfect. Thank you, Kanaya, you're a lifesaver. Now, I'd better let you put your groceries away, before your arms fall off."

Kanaya laughed. "There's little danger of that, but alright. I'll see you in a couple of days, then, Detective." She nudged the door closed with her foot, and Jane turned back to her own door. Now she would definitely be able to find something fashionable for the gala. Kanaya had an impeccable fashion sense that was obvious to anyone who saw her, and she would also understand the practical requirements Jane would ask of her outfit. _That really was serendipitous_ , she thought as she finally entered her apartment.

Her studio apartment still felt a little barren, seeing as she'd only moved in recently and there were several boxes she'd yet to unpack, but it was definitely functional, which was most important for her. Her baking supplies were set out in the kitchen to her left, waiting for her schedule to open up a little so she could do some real baking. Her computer and other office supplies were set up at a desk under the window on the far wall, in case she needed to investigate something around the clock. A privacy wall with empty shelves separated her bed from the dining table and chairs that were to her right, and the central area would hold a couch and several armchairs, once she had the chance to go looking for such things. For now, it held the boxes she hadn't unpacked yet, which were full of clothing, pictures, and stacks of books.

Jane pulled a frozen pasta dish out of the freezer and started cooking it in the microwave. Eventually she would cook actual meals for herself, but this was not the time to start. While the microwave ran, she decided to unpack some of the photographs in order to make the place feel a bit more like home. She already had a picture of herself at her Academy graduation by her bedside. Her dad and her cousin John were in it with her, while her uncle had taken it. He ended up being in the photo as well, as his pinkie finger covered the bottom right corner of the lens, making a giant blur in the finished product. They'd all teased him for his subpar photography skills, but Jane actually liked the photo more for that mistake. It meant her whole family really was in that picture.

She unpacked several photos of her and her friends throughout the orbits - Jane and Roxy at a charity bake-off (Roxy caught in the act of flinging frosting at the photographer); Jake and Roxy singing raucously at a piano with Dirk sitting apparently unamused in the background (though all of his friends could tell he was smiling); Jake, Dirk, and Jane throwing Roxy a surprise birthday party (which was mostly a surprise because it came three months early) - and placed them on the shelves in the dining room area. The four of them had been friends since their tween years, and while things had gotten awkward and uncomfortable sometimes due to romantic entanglements, they were all still very close. Dirk lived in a space station that orbited Veil, where he monitored and repaired the automated systems in orbit of the planet, while Jake lived off on the other side of the planet now, working with his cousin on their technology company.

The microwave beeped, signaling her food was ready. She ate it quickly while she thought about her friends. They had scattered after graduating from high school, with Dirk going immediately into his job, Jake taking some time to explore the galaxy, and Roxy moving to Skaia right away. Jane had been the last one to move out of their hometown, and that had taken her orbits. It actually felt a little strange to think she could now hop on a magtrain and knock on Roxy's door again. They'd all made sure to meet up every few months, but it had always been a heavily choreographed event, not the spontaneous meetings they used to have. Jane smiled at the photos on her wall. She and Roxy would get the chance to reconnect again, and Jake and Dirk might make their way to the city as well. The police work might be difficult, and the colleagues inscrutable, but it would be worth it for the chance to be with her friends again.

Jane finished her meal and finally prepared herself for bed. She placed her phone and glasses on her bedside table and burrowed underneath her comforter, letting thoughts of friendship and criminals drift away under the fog of sleep.

* * *

Her phone's buzzing ringtone woke her early the next morning, before her alarm clock had the chance. Jane fumbled around her bedside table and managed to knock her glasses to the floor before grabbing her phone. "Hello?" she asked blearily as she squinted to read the time. It was about half an hour before her alarm was set, meaning whoever was on the other end would have to have a damn good reason for waking her up.

"Oh, uh, hey, Janey. Thought this would go to voicemail. So, how'd the warehouse thingy go?" Roxy's perky voice came through from the other end.

Jane groaned. "Roxy, do you know what time it is?" The other woman had a habit of keeping odd hours, but she was usually better about not bothering others when they would be asleep.

"Not really, my clocks have all gone a little wonky recently. Dunno why. The sky's less dark than it was a while ago, though, so I figured you'd be getting up soon anyway." Roxy's voice sounded almost like normal, but there was some well-hidden strain behind her words.

Jane sat up, her sleepiness pushed aside by a growing worry. "Roxy, is something wrong? Has something happened?"

"Nah, nothin's really happened, just..." Roxy trailed off. Jane chewed her lip a little in anticipation. "So uh, yesterday after I gave you that tip about the warehouse, I crashed for a few hours, and then I got up to do some shopping I needed to get done, and when I was walking around, I think..." She trailed off again.

"Yes, Roxy?" Jane asked, as the silence grew long enough that she was considering dashing over to Roxy's place and shaking the answers out of her.

Roxy breathed out heavily. "There was just this one leprechaun dude in a red hat that I kept seeing whenever I went someplace, and it sorta felt like I was being followed. I'm probably just makin' stuff up, though," she continued quickly, "Like who would bother following me around? It's probably nothing."

"It's not nothing, Roxy," Jane insisted. "I shouldn't have asked you to help with this investigation, we're dealing with dangerous people here."

"Psh and shah, Janey. No way you were getting that super sweet warehouse scoop yesterday without my help. Like I said, I'm probably just makin' it all up in my head."

Jane said gently, "You wouldn't have called me this early if it was just nothing, Roxy."

Roxy made a scoffing sound. "Geez, Janey, I told you my clocks are acting all funky. I just sorta forgot what time it was and wanted to hear about the warehouse deal. Anyways, I've got hackin' to do and you've got crimes to chase. Laters." She hung up before Jane could get another word in.

Jane stared at her phone, worried about her friend. If the Felt had already tracked her down, she would need protection, but Jane didn't have the time to spare. She was still trying to think of a plan when her alarm finally went off.


	4. Chapter 4

Terezi sat at her desk, but she didn't bother working. She still had plenty of paperwork to get through, but she knew most of it was just busywork anyway. If the chief had a problem, xie would come and yell at her about it.

Instead, Terezi considered the Felt case. The warehouse raid, while outrageously dangerous and unplanned, had been somewhat fruitful. The detective seemed glad to know about the guns, at least, and those chumps had dropped a useful hint on where they might be able to sniff out the Felt's leaders. Despite the useful intel, though, Terezi still felt a ripple of displeasure deep in her midsection about how the night had gone. She wanted to believe that it was just the aftermath of being shot at, but really she hated that the detective's reckless actions had actually benefited them.

Of course, it was only the detective's actions that she hated, and not the human herself. Yes. Obviously.

A knock on her door interrupted Terezi's thoughts. "The door's open," she called out, and her visitor came in - Aradia Megido, one of the mediviscerators attached to the station. They'd hit it off a handful of orbits ago after discovering a mutual love for roleplaying and puzzles. Since then, Aradia had become one of Terezi's closest friends, and the only one who came close to understanding her dedication to the law.

"Hey!"Aradia said as she walked straight to Terezi's desk. " _You_ have been ignoring my emails."

Terezi shrugged and leaned back in her chair. "Not ignoring, simply putting off answering them."

"That's just like ignoring them, and you know it. Now, when are we getting you out of this office and back amongst the people?" Aradia leaned across the desk. "You can't avoid gaming night forever, you know."

Terezi kept her face focused in the general direction of Aradia's face. "You can't prove that. Besides, I have plenty of work to do here, as you can see." Terezi gestured to the pile of paperwork she'd been ignoring.

Aradia sighed and leaned back. "Look, I know things got bad back then, but it's been orbits. You can't just hide in your office and pretend other people have stopped existing. Besides, it's just me and Tavros and Sollux. You wouldn't even have to talk about anything, just come back to play with us. Sollux got a new leprechaun game he wants us to try out."

"No thanks." Terezi picked up one of her files and idly sniffed through it. "Is that all? Because I like talking with you and everything, but I've got some important cases I'm working on."

"I heard!" Aradia said as she collapsed in one of the chairs in front of Terezi's desk. "The whole department's talking about your raid last night."

"Ha! No surprise, I guess. It wasn't exactly a subtle operation."

"Oh really?" Aradia asked, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "I thought Pyrope operations were always scrupulous and perfect."

Terezi snorted. "That's a lie if ever I heard one!" Her mouth quirked into a small scowl. "Besides, last night was not exactly of my design."

Aradia looked at Terezi for a second, a sly smile slowly creeping across her face. "That's right, you have a partner on this case, don't you? How's that working out?"

"Fine," Terezi said in a short tone, "Just fine." She tried to get rid of the scowl on her face, but thinking of the detective just brought it back.

"Reeeeaaaally?" Aradia's smile was now a full smirk, and she was leaning towards Terezi again. "So you've been getting along with... oh, who was it again?"

"Crocker. Detective Jane Crocker," Terezi said tersely.

Aradia nodded. "Right, Detective Crocker. She's human, isn't she? That's got to be interesting."

Terezi shrugged and tried to focus on her paperwork again. "It's nothing special, just another partner."

"Sure, sure. Just another partner." Terezi could smell Aradia's smug curiosity coming off her in waves. "So do you wanna talk about how you are practically radiating caliginous vibes, or should I just ignore those?"

Terezi slammed her paperwork down. "That is not what's happening here!"

Aradia scoffed, "Right, and I'm next in line for the Condesce's throne. It's okay if you don't want to talk about it, but don't lie about it, either. You know that never works out well."

Terezi exhaled in frustration. "Look, Aradia, just -"

"Oh!" Terezi and Aradia turned to the door, where Detective Crocker stood in the open doorway. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt."

"No interruption! I was just on my way out. There's plenty of corpses for me to examine, after all!" Aradia stood and walked to the detective. "You're Jane, right? Terezi's partner on this case?"

"Uh, yes, I am," Jane answered. "Are you one of the coroners?"

"I bet you hope so, after that corpse comment!" Aradia laughed. "Yes, although my title is actually mediviscerator. You can just call me Aradia, though, since that's my name. Terezi and I are good friends, when she's not being stubborn about it."

"Get out of here, Aradia!" Terezi yelled from her desk. "Go do some work for once!" Aradia gave her a wink and walked out. Terezi would've felt bad about yelling at her, but she and Aradia had gotten into worse fights before. Besides, she deserved it for her wild accusations.

A little late, Terezi realized this left her alone and frustrated with Detective Crocker. _Oh, this is not a good situation at all_ , she thought to herself. She suppressed a groan and instead tried to plaster a professional smile on her face. "Well, what brings you to my lair, Detective Blueberry Muffin?"

Judging by the look on the human's face, her smile was more predatory than professional. "Your lair? It doesn't seem dank enough for that."

Terezi waved her hand. "Account for cultural differences, please. This is a quite satisfactory lair by troll standards, I assure you. Don't avoid the question. What are you doing here?"

Detective Crocker fidgeted with her hands. "There's... well, there's something connected to our case that's happened. Or might happen, I think."

"Another lead?" Terezi pushed her paperwork away, relieved at the prospect of having a new lead to focus on.

"Not exactly." The detective hesitated, then stepped further into Terezi's office. She stood by one of the chairs and crossed her arms, but did not sit down. "It's connected to our last one, really."

Terezi clasped her hands in front of her on her desk. "Well, explain then."

"It's..." The detective trailed off, and Terezi resisted the urge to threaten her with a drubbing. "My friend Roxy, Roxy Lalonde, is a talented hacker, and so I asked for her help with part of our case. She's the one who gave us that lead about that warehouse drop." Jane paused, biting her lip. "She called this morning, saying a leprechaun was following her. I'm... worried about her, especially considering our adventure last night."

Terezi tapped one of her fingers on her desk a few times. "I see. And why are you telling me this?"

The detective frowned and put her arms down. "I'm telling you because I would like some help in figuring out what to do."

"And you came to me?" Terezi chuckled. "Look, I understand you're worried, but your friend is not my problem."

"Excuse me?" Detective Crocker stamped up to Terezi's desk. "Last night was very profitable for us, and it wouldn't have been possible without Roxy's help. You're willing to just... ignore that?"

"Frankly, yes. I obviously know nothing about this friend of yours, so I don't know what you were expecting from me. It's not like I'm some magical problem solver. I'm simply a legislacerator."

"I know that!" The detective slammed her fist on Terezi's desk, cracking the wood slightly. Terezi was impressed by her strength. "Gosh darn it, Roxy lives all by herself in Lower Derse! You know as well as I do that the officers over there are completely lax in doing their jobs! Even if I explain all this to the chief, all xie could do is ask those buffoons to keep an eye out, and that's barely better than doing nothing at all!"

Terezi leaned back in her chair. "Yes, they are very lazy in that area of town, but I still don't know what you want from me."

Detective Crocker swelled up, as though she was preparing to flip Terezi's desk straight into her face, but then she almost collapsed in on herself. "I was hoping you would stop being such a frustrating jerk and help me, but I guess that was too much to expect of you." The detective shook her head and marched out of Terezi's office, residual anger turning her steps into stomps.

Terezi closed the door and returned to her desk. She picked up one of her files and paged through it, determined to get some work done, but she couldn't concentrate. She loved seeing the detective frustrated and angry, but... not like that. It left a bad taste in her mouth. Her friend did live in one of the least reputable parts of town, and Terezi knew that gangs like the Felt did not take trespassers lightly, whether they trespassed physically or electronically. She knew that very well.

Before she could reconsider, she was dialing a number she thought she would never use again. The phone rang on the other side for quite a while, but the person she was trying to reach finally picked up on the eighth ring. "Well, well, weeeeeeeell. The mighty legislacerator finally comes crawling back."

Terezi sighed and said, "Hello, Vriska. I'd say it's a pleasure to hear your voice again, but we promised a long time ago not to lie to each other anymore, didn't we?"

"Like you ever gave a fuck about that! You never followed the rules, not even the ones you made up yourself," Vriska said bitterly.

"Oh, like you have the right to judge me," Terezi spat back. "I never broke any agreements you didn't smash to pieces first."

Vriska laughed hollowly. "That's rich! That's just the most hilarious thing you've ever said! Maybe you're just upset because you weren't smart enough to see the loopholes first. Maybe you're mad that I finally managed to get one over on you. Maybe you just hate that I got to betray you before you could betray me!"

"I was never going to - " Terezi started to argue back, then stopped herself. "Look, we can hash out old arguments until the Demoness comes for us both, or we could just forget all of that for five minutes and do a little business with each other."

"Oh? Is the righteous legislacerator looking to dip her claws in the criminal underworld at last?" Terezi could just smell the look on Vriska's face - smug and calculating and distrustful, all at the same time. "And here I thought you were above such 'morally deficient' activities. That was the gist of what you said the last time we talked, at least."

Terezi tapped her fingers on her desk impatiently. "I'm not interested in any of your petty criminal undertakings, Vriska. I need you to do something for me."

"A favor?" Vriska sounded skeptical. "You call me up after orbits of complete silence for a favor?"

"Yes," Terezi said bluntly.

"Fuck you!" came Vriska's swift reply.

Terezi clenched her teeth. "Hey, do you think I would call for just any old favor? This is something important I need help with, and sadly you're the best person I know for the job. Believe me, if I had any other choice, I wouldn't be asking you."

"Right, the upstanding officer of the law needs the help of a seedy criminal," Vriska scoffed. "What the fuck could you even need my help for? Don't you have police officers or whatever to do your job for you?"

"I... don't want my hand in this being spread around," Terezi said reluctantly. "Really I'd like to keep the matter as quiet as possible."

Vriska laughed uproariously. "Oh my god, you want this kept quiet, and you're asking _me_ for help? Have you forgotten literally everything about me?"

"Look, if you're just going to be a complete wiggler about this, I'll figure something else out. Great talking to you again, really, we should do this more often," Terezi said bitterly. She'd almost hung up when a tinny "Wait!" stayed her hand. She brought the phone back up and said, "Well?"

"You could at least tell me what the job is," Vriska said, sounding a little intrigued despite obvious efforts to hide it. "I mean, if it's something that huge, you should at least let me know so I don't mess it up for you if I don't end up helping you out."

Terezi considered her options. She was already sick of Vriska and severely regretting letting her back into her life, even for just a brief conversation. On the other hand, Detective Crocker's friend deserved better protection than the fools who had jurisdiction over Lower Derse. It wouldn't be right to let her get killed by the Felt because of her help with the investigation, even if Terezi couldn't stand the detective herself.

Terezi sighed. When it came down to it, she didn't really have a choice in the matter. "All right, fine. There's a human in Lower Derse, goes by the name Roxy Lalonde. Some sort of high-end hacker, I think."

"What, like on Sollux's level?" Vriska asked.

"Probably, yes, and don't interrupt," Terezi ordered the other woman. Vriska scoffed at her words, but stayed quiet otherwise. "She helped with an investigation I'm working on, and she may be a target because of it. I need you to find her and keep her safe."

"Keep her safe from what?" Vriska asked cautiously.

Terezi thought for a moment and groaned quietly to herself. There was no way she would be able to keep the heart of the matter a secret from Vriska. "The target of my current investigation happens to be the Felt."

"The Felt?! Are you shitting me?!?" Vriska shrieked. Even when Terezi moved the phone away from her ear, she could still understand Vriska's words. "You want me to go up against those freaks?! That's insane! That's fucking suicidal! Nobody crosses the Felt, nobody!"

Sensing a pause, Terezi brought the phone back to her ear. "Are you telling me you can't do it? Because I'll understand if you're not up to the challenge, you know."

"Oh, fuck you, Terezi," Vriska said at a more normal volume. "Like I can't tell when you're trying to pull some manipulation shit on me. I've seen you use that on way too many people to fall for it myself."

 _I'm sure you like to believe that_ , Terezi thought to herself, but she didn't say it out loud. That would just make Vriska hang up immediately, and she still wanted her help. "That's the job, Vriska. Keep the human safe from the Felt until my investigation is done and the Felt are dispersed."

Vriska stayed silent for a few moments, obviously thinking her options over. "And just what are you offering me in return for this nutty idea? Because if you think I'd do this out of the goodness of my heart, you've gotten even crazier since the last time I talked to you."

"It's a favor, Vriska. You'd be able to ask one of me in return," Terezi said matter-of-factly.

"A favor, huh?" Vriska was quiet for a little while again. "No, you know what I want for this? Information."

Terezi frowned. "What kind of information?"

"What do you think? Information on the Felt."

"Fuck no," Terezi said immediately. "I can't compromise the biggest case of my life just to help you fortify your miniscule criminal empire."

"It's not about that, okay? I don't want the info to take their place or get in with them or whatever you're thinking about," Vriska spoke fast, obviously trying to convince Terezi she was telling the truth. Weirdly enough, it was working. "They shut me down hard and fast when they came in town, and all I want is revenge."

"Revenge? Really?" Terezi asked. "How is that any different of a motive?"

Vriska snarled, "You know it is! All I want is a chance to take them out myself, and you're my best chance at doing that." Vriska's voice shifted to a tone Terezi remembered, from older days of conning strangers together. "So I'm the best chance you've got, and you're the best chance I've got. I say we have a deal, don't you?"

Terezi hesitated for only a second before saying, "Yes, I believe we do."

"Great!" Vriska's voice reverted to her usual fake cheer. "The Scourge Sisters are teaming up once again. The Felt won't know what hit 'em. Don't forget your side of the deal, okay?" Vriska hung up before Terezi could even think about saying anything. She knew she'd do that, of course - Vriska loved getting the last word in any situation. It was a petty sort of victory, but that was the kind of victory Vriska excelled at.

Terezi put her phone down and sighed. Vriska was generally a hellish monster, but she could be counted on to hold up her end of a bargain if she didn't think she could weasel out of it, or if she didn't want to risk the other side's betrayal. The detective's friend would most likely be safe from the Felt's attack, meaning Terezi could focus on her job again.

Before she could even think of getting back to her paperwork, though, there came a knock on her door. Whoever was there opened it without waiting for a reply, and Terezi's objection died in her throat when she smelled it was the police chief.

"Pyrope, there's been a homicide, and I think you'll want in on this one," xie said. For a few seconds, Terezi thought she'd been too late, and Roxy Lalonde had already been taken out. The police chief's next words led her thoughts down an entirely different path. "Somebody finally found Spades Slick, and they've taken him out."


	5. Chapter 5

Jane ducked under the crime scene tape strung across the doorway. Inside the apartment next to an overturned chair lay the body of a smallish black carapacian, whose right arm was gone from the elbow down. The first officer on the scene, a leprechaun arbiter, doffed his hat at her and started rattling off the facts. Jane paid him just enough attention to get the gist of the case - the rest of her attention was on Legislacerator Pyrope, as she stalked around the apartment, giving various objects deep sniffs and drubbing innocent officers who got in her way.

"Vic was identified as Jack Noir, also known as Spades Slick. Apartment was trashed on arrival, and the victim's got loads of defensive wounds, too, meaning there was probably a fight. None of the neighbors heard a thing, though." Jane wasn't surprised - this neighborhood's residents liked to keep to themselves, especially when the law was around. "Cause of death was probably the bullet to the back of the head, but the mediviscerator's still doing her work so we don't know for sure."

"Oh yes," Legislacerator Pyrope called from her position across the room, "Slick might have been poisoned between the violent altercation and the gun being shot at him. We mustn't rule anything out, after all!"

The mediviscerator sat up, pausing in her examination of the body and smiling at the legislacerator. Jane recognized her as the troll who had been in Pyrope's office earlier. "Now, Terezi, I thought you wanted me to do my job? That's what you said earlier, after all."

The legislacerator snorted. "Determining the cause of death here hardly counts as work, you know."

"Yes, but it is my job nevertheless," the mediviscerator (Aradia? Yes, that was her name) shrugged. "So shut up and do yours, and leave the rest of us to do ours." In contrast to her words, Aradia still had a big smile on her face, and it didn't drop when she turned back to the corpse. If anything, she smiled a little wider as she examined the corpse's head. Jane shuddered a little - she'd seen her fair share of dead bodies and she wasn't some fresh-faced cop on her first homicide, but active happiness seemed a little much to her.

Jane decided to investigate the rest of the apartment and leave the mediviscerator to her work. The apartment was small and sparse, with just the bare minimum of furniture to ensure its occupant didn't drive himself insane. The kitchen was full of take-out boxes from carapacian restaurants and instant meals tailored to a carapacian diet, meaning the victim likely didn't socialize outside of his own species.

There was just the one chair and television set in the living room. A few piles of mail were strewn about (a cursory glance through one pile suggested they were all addressed to Current Resident), but there were no personal decorations on the walls, nor any shelves for extra belongings. Jack Noir apparently had no need for such things, and a trip into the bedroom confirmed that impression. The only things in there were a mattress with a single blanket, and a lamp. Jane tried the light switch and found the overhead light didn't work, and the singular window was far too grimy to let enough light in at any time of day.

Jane returned to the living room. _All in all, this place feels more like a safe house than someone's home._ The legislacerator laughed harshly, and Jane realized she'd mumbled her thought under her breath. "Yes, you've got it just right, Detective Blueberry Muffin! A safe house for a despicable slimeball, and one that he managed to hide in for orbits without being found!" She kicked at a pile of mail, ignoring the arbiter's complaints about "messing around with the crime scene".

"Um..." Jane could tell Legislacerator Pyrope knew more about the victim, but she wasn't sure how to ask without the other officer coming after her with her cane.

The mediviscerator noticed her confusion and apparently took pity on her. "Hey Terezi, instead of stomping around in here and being a big pain in the ass, why don't you take Detective Jane somewhere and explain who this guy was?" The legislacerator glared at Aradia, and even though her gaze was about six inches off, it was still pretty intense. Aradia just shrugged in response and said, "Look, I think she needs to know. After all," she held up a cueball, "I found this in his pocket, so it looks like this is connected to your case."

Legislacerator Pyrope scowled and stalked into the bedroom. Jane shot a quick grateful smile at Aradia before following her in. The legislacerator paced back and forth by the window, irately tapping her cane. Jane stayed by the doorway, quite happy to stay as far from that cane as she could. When the troll noticed she was there, she stopped pacing and began talking.

"Several orbits ago, the streets of Skaia were ruled by the Midnight Crew, a group of carapacians who loved to cause mayhem and destruction. The Crew was led by Spades Slick, whom you have had the great pleasure of meeting, with Diamonds Droog as his right-hand man - a good thing, since his arm was chopped off orbits ago by a business rival." Legislacerator Pyrope began pacing again. "There was also Hearts Boxcars, their brute force man, and Clubs Deuce, an explosives expert. Between the four of them, they ran everything around here. A person couldn't sneeze without the Midnight Crew asking for 'compensation for sneezing without permission'."

The legislacerator stopped pacing and chose to stare out the window instead. Jane wasn't certain, but she was pretty sure the troll couldn't smell out the window any better than she could see. Her focus seemed to be completely on the past. "I was assigned as lead legislacerator on the case, and I chased them down every hole I could find. We almost had them in a ... surprise shakedown, but something..." Legislacerator Pyrope trailed off and fell silent. Jane nearly spoke when the pause went on too long, but the legislacerator finally sighed and began again. "Someone made a huge mistake, and Spades managed to slip away. We captured the other three leaders, but he vanished completely. I was _encouraged_ to use my talents investigating other crimes, and the case was passed to some other officer, where it was left to rot." She turned her head back at Jane and smiled wryly. "I know, because I checked. The officer chosen to replace me decided Spades must have jumped on a cargo ship and cleared off this planet, so investigating further wasn't worth the effort."

Jane scowled. "Did he bother looking at all? Or was that just a convenient guess that meant he didn't have to try at all?"

Legislacerator Pyrope laughed harshly. "Oh, I think you know as well as I do which one it was." She faced the window again. "Spades Slick was here this whole time, and that incompetent idiot was perfectly happy to let him get away with it all if it meant he didn't have to get off his ass and do any real investigating."

"Despicable," Jane said. "Those sorts should be weeded out and kicked out of the service to make way for someone who will do their job properly."

"I'm glad we can agree on that, Detective Blueberry Muffin."

The quiet stretched between them, and Jane realized the conversation was over. She waited for a few moments to see if the legislacerator would say anything else about the Midnight Crew, but she seemed focused on something else. Jane decided to return to the other room and leave Legislacerator Pyrope alone with her thoughts.

* * *

_Terezi sat huddled in a cramped corner of an alleyway and scowled at the bricks. She'd arranged to meet Gamzee for a date here in their usual manner - a challenge pinned to his door written in blood - and he wasn't here yet._

__Maybe he isn't coming, _she thought to herself for the hundredth time. They hadn't been able to see much of each other since she took on the Midnight Crew case, but that was why she was trying to inject a little more romance back into their kismesissitude. She hadn't used her own blood for the challenge, but Gamzee would never notice anyway, and she knew he would need a distraction just as much as she did. Every new lead on the Midnight Crew ended up completely fruitless, and the frustration from each failure built up until she felt ready to blow. When she'd found herself at another dead end, she'd decided to take a night off to spend with her kismesis. He'd been pulling away again, and she knew a grand hatedate would be just what they needed._

_So, she'd written the note with store-bought blood and set the meeting time an hour earlier than she expected him to be there, since she knew that he knew just how much she hated how little he cared about being on time, and so he would certainly arrive late on purpose just to piss her off. This way, though, he would arrive just on time, and she would get there just before he came and ruin his plans. That would annoy him so much!_

_Of course, she'd realized after making the note that Gamzee could realize her plan, and therefore choose to arrive "on time". Then, when Terezi arrived at her actual intended starting time, he would be able to critique her laziness, which would give him the advantage for the evening. Terezi decided to nip that plan in the bud by arriving half an hour before the time she'd written on the note to lay in wait for him. When he came, he would think she was nowhere to be found and become smug about his victory, only to crash even harder when Terezi strolled onto the scene and revealed she'd gotten there long before him! It was perfect!_

_And thus Terezi sat in a tiny damp alley for two and a half hours. She'd started out the evening thrilled about her obvious victory over her kismesis, but as time wore on, joy turned to boredom, and then to frustration. She was about to either start slamming her head into the wall just to pass the time, or give up and go home, when Gamzee finally shuffled into view, two hours late._

_"Finally!" Terezi yelled and stood up, no longer caring about her cunning plan. "What, did you get lost trying to find your shoes or something?"_

_Gamzee lolled his head to one side and gave Terezi a sickly grin. "You know, I was coming at this motherfucking spot fast as I read on your note, but I had a little meet-on in my way and fucking forgot what my motherfucking feet were supposed to be leading me on to."_

_Terezi's stomach rolled in disgust as his saccharine breath poured over her. "Gamzee, are you actually high right now? Seriously?" He'd been sober for just over two orbits now, ever since he'd become disillusioned with the religion that sanctified being completely smashed most of your life._

_"Fuck no," he said disdainfully. "Motherfucker what sold me this fuckin weak-ass elixir didn't know a shit thing on making it work right. Said some carapacian motherfucker gave it at him, and those shellfucks ain't got the knowing of the real stuff. So now I've just got a wicked motherfucker of a headache and nothing to show with it."_

_Terezi didn't really care about Gamzee's drug habits - in fact, she only knew he'd been sober because as much as he hated himself now, he hated his past self even more - but the mention of a carapacian involved with the deal made her brain go into overdrive._ They have the whole community on a complete lockdown, no carapacian would dare deal drugs without their permission...! _"Gamzee, who sold you the drugs?"_

_Gamzee stared blankly at her. "You gonna ditch our date to take down a motherfuckin joker like that?" he asked in a weird tone._

_She couldn't tell what his tone meant, and she didn't care. "I don't have time for this, Gamzee! Just tell me who sold you the drugs! No, actually," she said as she started walking back down the street Gamzee had walked in from, "lead me to him, it'll be faster." She was nearly at the corner down the street before she heard his thumping steps behind her._

_"Motherfucker ain't worth the spit I wasted on him after getting with this shitty elixir, you know."_

_"It's not him I'm concerned about." Gamzee didn't say anything else, but he moved in front of Terezi and lead the way. They walked in silence, Terezi focusing on the potential break she'd been searching for, and Gamzee's blank expression giving away none of his thoughts._

_He led her to his supplier, a troll whose blood straddled the border between yellow and olive. After a quick interrogation, she pointed them towards a bar in Lower Derse, where she claimed her own supplier spent most of his nights. The kismeses made their way there in silence again, and soon found themselves at a carapacian nightclub._

_Terezi called in for back-up before they entered, and it was a good thing she had, because right in the middle of everything was the Midnight Crew, at their own table. Terezi got one good whiff of the room - bar to the left, stage situated across from the door, and tables filling the space in between - before Hearts Boxcars threw his chair at her head and the scene erupted into chaos._

_Most of that night was a blur to Terezi, filled with fighting and large-scale arrests, but there was one moment she would never forget. Gamzee, who had followed her around all night like he had nowhere better to go, was throwing carapacians left and right, and laughing like it was all a huge joke. To him, it probably was - she knew he hadn't liked killing or violence when he was religious, but when the whole thing was revealed as a scam to keep stupid trolls in line, he'd started using his caste-derived strength to take out anything in his way. He was always so bitter about how he'd wasted his life in devotion to something that was just a huge joke to everyone else, and Terezi loved to remind him of that. That was how you kept a kismesis, after all._

_Anyway, in the course of his rampage, Gamzee had happened on Spades Slick himself, who only had a knife to defend himself with. He tried stabbing the troll, but Gamzee just picked him up and started choking him. Terezi watched from across the room as Slick's flailing subsided into half-hearted twitching, and felt an angry joy rising in her heart._

_Then, from the outer door, a voice called out, "Freeze, or I'll - I'll sh-shoot!" The words were barely in the air before a gunshot followed them, and Gamzee dropped Spades Slick to cradle his injured arm, howling in pain. Terezi stood in shock, her nose catching both the rookie human officer in the doorway, trembling like a tiny animal, and Spades Slick rolling behind the bar. She shook off her surprise and ran behind the bar to catch him before he could slip away, but it was too late. Whatever secret passage he'd been aiming for was invisible to her nose, and he was nowhere to be found._

* * *

Terezi inhaled deeply, letting the musty scent of the room bring her back to the present, away from the sweat and blood of the past.

That night had been her last night on the Midnight Crew case - she hadn't even been allowed to legislacerate the other members. Apparently, finding their headquarters was not good enough to offset the bad publicity of a major firefight involving a berserk troll.

Gamzee just left after that, too. He hadn't bothered breaking up with her before disappearing, but after a few months with no word from him, she got the message. Looking back, she knew most of the effort in their relationship had come from her, but it still stung to be abandoned like that. She'd always hated Gamzee, from the day she met him, and she'd thought he would be her One.

He was gone, though, and Spades Slick was dead, and she had a new criminal to chase down. Getting lost in useless memories wouldn't help her with any of her current problems. She strode back into the living room, ready to hear Aradia's assessment of Slick's corpse.

She'd just stepped in, though, when her phone started ringing. Across the room, Detective Crocker was already answering hers - apparently she was getting a phone call at the exact same time. Terezi's stomach started sinking when the detective practically yelled, "Roxy? Are those gunshots I hear? What's going on?" The legislacerator pursed her lips and answered her own caller, already willing to guess who was on the other end.

"Terezi? Shit, thanks for finally answering!" Vriska's harsh voice came through, muddled by the occasional gunshot in the background. "You know waiting for eight rings is my thing, right? It's not like it makes you cooler than me to leave me hanging!"

Wasting time on childish arguments was exactly the opposite of what Terezi wanted to do. "Let me guess, your protection detail just got complicated, didn't it?"

Vriska laughed. "No fucking kidding! I figured I'd have at least a few hours of tailing the chick before I needed to swoop in like some sort of fucking hero! You really owe me big for this one, Pyrope."

"Right, as long as the human is safe," Terezi said, already heading towards the door. "Where are you taking her?"

"How'd you - shit, almost forgot how good you are at knowing what people are planning. I'm taking her to one of my hidey-holes, the one in midtown. I know you know where that is, don't even think of pretending you don't." Vriska lowered her voice and said, "Get us out of there safely, and get me my information, or this human is mine, got it?"

Terezi snorted. "Nice try, Vriska. I'll see you soon, and maybe I'll even leave my judicial restraints behind." She hung up before Vriska could get another word in. Now in the hallway, she decided to wait, knowing the detective would likely be joining her soon. While she waited, she made one quick phone call.

Sure enough, Detective Crocker soon exited the crime scene, phone still held to her ear. "Don't worry, Roxy, I'll be there soon. Stay safe, okay? I'll be right there." She hung up and started walking purposefully down the hall.

Terezi had to almost run to keep up. When they got outside, she told Detective Crocker to wait a few seconds. "Why?" The detective asked. "I know you know my best friend is getting shot at _right now_ , and I'm nowhere near where she is, so I've got to get going if I want to have any sort of a chance at saving her!"

The legislacerator wanted to admire the way frustration looked on the human, but now was definitely not the time. "Because I have a cab coming to this location ready to take us both to where your friend is, and I know exactly where she's being kept right now. So you can either start walking and hope you'll make it in time, or you can take a cab with me."

A handful of expressions worked their way across the detective's face, and Terezi was delighted to see that she still seemed conflicted about waiting around. After a short period of time, though, Detective Crocker said, "Fine."


	6. Chapter 6

Jane didn't know what to do. Roxy had called her, freaking the fuck out about these leprechaun thugs that were trying to gun her down, and telling her all about this swashbuckling troll that was protecting her but refusing to explain why. Now she was pacing outside a crime scene waiting for a cab called by the legislacerator she was forced to work with, and unable to think of a single plan to help her best friend.

Legislacerator Pyrope was _not_ helping - after getting her to stop and wait for a cab instead of running off in the vague direction of where she knew Roxy had been, the troll decided to sit calmly on the steps and play some weird game on her phone. _She can't even see properly! How does that game have any entertainment value for her?!_ Jane's thoughts screamed, but she didn't bother saying anything out loud. She knew the legislacerator would just berate her for making fun of her disability, or explain how this game was beyond her human comprehension, or something even more ridiculous.

She hadn't even known this legislacerator for a week, and already Jane understood far too much about her.

Finally, the cab arrived. It was a top-downer - a special sort of automobile that put the driver above the passengers. That separation between the driver and passengers made it easier to install privacy screens, since the driver's booth could be almost completely sealed off if desired. It was also able to drive along the ground or on the first level of Skaia's aerial traffic patterns, meaning the driver could navigate traffic jams that trapped vehicles only capable of one or the other. Those two factors made it a very popular car for the various cab companies in the city.

Jane jumped into the top-downer as soon as it stopped, and the legislacerator followed her in. When the cabbie asked for their address, though, she groaned. "Shit, I didn't think they'd send you."

"Terezi?" The cabbie, a troll with nubby horns, seemed surprised. "Fucking hell, this emergency call was for you? If I'd known that, I would've asked if I could gargle the entire contents of the company fridge and spit it in the Condesce's eye first."

"Karkat, just, shut up and leave the dramatics out of this for now, okay? We're in a bit of a hurry." She gave him an address in Midtown Derse, and he started driving. He did not, however, keep quiet.

"So what kind of legislacerator takes a fucking cab instead of, oh, I don't know, an officer's car like you're fucking supposed to?! What, you haven't fucked with me for a few months and you thought I was due for a reminder of just how fucking crazy you can be?"

Legislacerator Pyrope had her head in her hands, almost as though she was embarrassed. "Karkat, I seriously had no idea they would send you. This cab company happens to be the first one in my phone, and we are in a very big rush to get somewhere, and everyone knows top-downers can get through the streets much faster than the official vehicles, as ridiculous as that is. Now please, for once just be quiet, and do your job, and both of us can walk away from this without strangling each other."

Karkat scoffed. "Yeah, right. I'd trust you to stab your cane straight through my nook up to my brain before I'd trust any of that hoofbeastshit you just ladled out for me." Before he could say anything else, the legislacerator jabbed the button that would close the privacy screen. Karkat's angry shouting could still be dimly heard (he moved on from yelling at the legislacerator to yelling at the other drivers, and the occasional animal, after a few minutes), but for the most part the only sound was now the rushing wind from outside the vehicle.

Now that she was stuck in a top-downer and on her way to save Roxy, Jane felt a little calmer. The obvious tension between the legislacerator and their driver made the air tense and awkward, though. Jane twiddled her thumbs and stared out the window, trying to gauge how long their journey would be. Karkat was driving fast, but it would still be a while before they were anywhere close to where Roxy was.

Suddenly, Jane realized something wasn't quite right. "Wait," she said, turning to Legislacerator Pyrope, "how did you know where to tell the driver to go?" Remembering what Roxy had told her, she continued, "And just who is that troll helping Roxy fight off the Felt? Do you know her somehow? Did you tell her to protect Roxy?"

Legislacerator Pyrope sighed and leaned her head back. "Fuck, I was really hoping you wouldn't ask about that."

"Why the hell not?!" Jane yelled, not really caring if the driver could hear them. He obviously didn't care about keeping private business private. "Did you set some kind of tail on Roxy without telling me?"

The legislacerator rubbed her forehead. "Yes?" She offered the word like a guess, as though that wasn't exactly what she had done.

"After all that business about how this wasn't your problem, and how you weren't going to help me whatsoever? I asked you for help, and you practically laughed in my face! Then you simply decide to help me anyway, without telling me?" Jane was completely livid. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"Look," the legislacerator said, "I didn't tell you I was getting your friend help because the person I asked to protect her isn't exactly someone I'm proud to know. Besides, I didn't think the Felt would move this fast. I thought we'd have at least a day before Vriska would have to step in."

"Holy shit, you fucking asked Vriska?" Karkat's muffled voice came through from the upper compartment.

"Quiet, you! Your part in this is simply to drive!" Terezi yelled back, rapping on the roof of their section with her cane.

"I'll drive us all off the nearest fucking cliff I can find if it means I don't have to see that bitch again!" Karkat shouted.

Terezi grunted in exasperation and slumped in her seat. Jane was still angry at her, though, and wasn't willing to let this die just yet. "So how exactly was not telling me necessary? Because I would have appreciated a little warning that some mysterious troll was going to be following my best friend, especially if it meant getting another phone call halfway through the night from her, fretting herself to pieces because now she was being followed by _two_ complete strangers."

Suddenly, Legislacerator Pyrope grinned at her. "You know, none of that sounds like a thank you for making sure your friend didn't die."

"Oh!" Jane's anger didn't disappear, but it was overtaken by a sense of shame. She didn't really want to thank the troll for going behind her back like that, but her actions did save Roxy, even if she'd done it in the most obnoxious way possible. "Er... Yes, thank you for that." Even that small show of gratitude rankled Jane. "That really doesn't excuse your actions, though."

"I don't know, saving someone's life generally gives me a lot of slack," the legislacerator said, still grinning at Jane. "I think you're being too uptight about this. Loosen up!"

"Loosen up?!" Jane almost screeched. "I can't believe you! My friend nearly died -"

"But she didn't," she interrupted. "And it was all thanks to me!"

Jane stared at the troll, unable to think of anything to say in the face of her sheer audacity. She clenched her fists, and she might honestly have tried to deck the legislacerator if the vehicle hadn't come to a complete stop, with Karkat shouting through the screen that they'd arrived.

Jane jumped out of the vehicle as fast as she'd gotten in, leaving the legislacerator to deal with their bill. Up the street a little, she saw several police vehicles forming a barrier outside of a particular building. The building was over ten stories tall, like most Skaian buildings, and from the outside it seemed like it was filled with abandoned offices. Jane began walking purposefully towards the hubbub, and the legislacerator's tapping cane soon followed.

"I told Karkles not to bother waiting for us, since I'm sure we'll take an officer's vehicle back to the precinct after all this." Jane ignored the legislacerator, still upset about her childish secrecy. When they were nearly at the police barricade, though, she ducked down a side alley, almost leaving Legislacerator Pyrope behind. "What are you doing?" she asked when she caught up. "The building we want is a few doors down, you know."

"I know," Jane replied as she traced one hand along the wall, "but the buildings in this part of town tend to be connected to each other. Roxy told me once that this sector was mostly built by species like the chelonians, who like to have tunnels throughout all their properties for some reason." She smiled for a moment, remembering Roxy's late-night stories about the history of Skaia. "She said programmers were the same way, leaving back doors and secret tunnels hidden through all their work. She once called herself a cybernetic Indiana Jones, hunting down artifacts in temples made out of code."

"Fascinating," the troll's dry drawl brought Jane back to the present, "but what does that have to do with this?"

Jane finally found what she was looking for. "Roxy loves things like that, secret tunnels and passageways and everything. She learned all about these buildings, including..." Jane pinched together the small indents she'd found in the alley's wall, which opened a small door into the building. "How to get in."

The legislacerator whistled, and the partners walked into the tunnel. The ceilings were rather low, but that was unsurprising, considering they were probably built by caudatians or chelonians, who were on average much shorter than trolls or humans. Both of them crouched as they walked along, Legislacerator Pyrope's horns occasionally scraping against the ceiling.

They soon came to a door that most likely led into the building Roxy and Vriska were holed up in. Jane grabbed the handle and locked eyes with the legislacerator, who unsheathed her sword and nodded. Nodding back, Jane quietly opened the door, and the pair walked into another featureless hallway.

Jane could hear murmurs and stomping feet coming from the floors above them, which most likely came from the Felt. That meant that they had the right building, and the Felt were searching the upper floors for their prey. Now that they were inside, the legislacerator seemed to know where she was going, and Jane was happy to let her lead the way. _As much as she rubs me the wrong way, she is good at what she does,_ Jane thought wryly.

After searching through what felt like endless hallways (though they'd only been searching for less than twenty minutes, probably), the legislacerator suddenly paused near a door. Jane didn't see anything differentiating this door from any of the others they'd passed, and she couldn't hear anything out of the ordinary, either. Legislacerator Pyrope, seeing her confusion, tapped her nose and grinned. Jane rolled her eyes as the legislacerator quietly knocked eight times on the door. She'd barely finished the eighth knock when the door was yanked open and they were pulled inside, the door almost slammed behind them.

The room they were in had probably been a storage closet when the building was actually in use, but now it was filled with cushions, treasures, and random belongings. There was a definite spider theme, with spiders on the cushions and even a few spider webs hung from the ceiling. Near the wall opposite the door, Roxy sat on a pile of cushions, cradling her head with a sick look on her face.

Just seeing Roxy alive made some of Jane's worries and tension disappear. She removed herself from the grip of the stranger who'd answered the door (Vriska, no doubt) and went straight to Roxy's side, kneeling beside her. "Roxy? How are you feeling, are you okay?"

"Janey," Roxy smiled at her, then winced. "I'mm doin' just fine, you know. Juuust fine." She winced again.

"Well, that's the worst lie you've ever told me," Jane said, trying to keep her tone light and free from the worry she was still feeling. "Don't sugarcoat it, just tell me the truth."

Roxy giggled quietly. "Just the facts, ma'am. Always knew you'd make a great cop, Janey." She winced and rubbed at her head a little. Jane placed her hand lightly on the spot and felt a large bump underneath her fingertips. Roxy tried to smile at her again, but she couldn't mask the pain underneath it. "Jusst a little bruise, you know. No biggy."

"Right, 'no biggy'," Jane said absently as she looked at Roxy's eyes. "Have you got a headache? Nausea? Is your brain feeling foggy?"

"Uh..." Roxy blinked a few times, seeming to process Jane's questions one at a time. Finally, she said, "Head hurts a bit, yeah, an' it'sss kinda hard to think straight. Like, like, not like being drunk, but little bit like that."

Jane smiled reassuringly and stroked Roxy's arm. "I'm afraid you've got the classical symptoms of a concussion, Miss Lalonde."

"Oh mmman," Roxy said, "And no Jake around t'play sexy nurse for me." She pouted as best she could, and Jane smothered a giggle.

"Yeah, great, she's alive, you're welcome," Vriska said, reminding Jane that they weren't alone. "Now can we get out of here? I'm pretty attached to my skin, and I'd like to get out of here while I've still got it."

"Right, let's go," Jane said, carefully helping Roxy to her feet. She kept one arm around Roxy for support. She'd have to trust the trolls to defend them in the event of a brawl, or pick up Roxy and make a run for it. She put more faith in the latter option.

Both the trolls stood in front of the door - the legislacerator had her cane ready as always, while Vriska had a broad sword of some kind. It looked like it had been lifted straight out of a swashbuckling pulp novel. Legislacerator Pyrope gestured for Vriska to open the door, but Vriska snorted and said, "Yeah, like I'd let you get a clear shot at my back." The legislacerator sighed in frustration and reached for the door with her open hand. Everyone held their breath as she opened it.

When it was obvious that the coast was clear, the assorted group piled out into the hallway. "Where to next, detective?" the legislacerator asked Jane, catching her off-guard. She'd been concentrating on what she'd have to do once they got out of there, not how to get out in the first place. When she didn't answer right away, the legislacerator raised one eyebrow and said, "Unless you'd rather just sit here and wait for the Felt to find us. That's certainly a choice you could make."

"Ugh, shut up," Jane said automatically. She quickly considered their options, then said, "Let's go out the front, we can get Roxy medical help faster that way."

"Whatever you say, Detective Blueberry Muffin," Legislacerator Pyrope said archly, leading the way down the hall towards the front of the building. Jane and Roxy walked behind her, and Vriska took up the rear, glancing between the hallways in front of and behind them.

They walked in relative silence for several minutes, navigating the twisted hallways. "You know," Jane whispered to Roxy, "I support cultural differences and all that, but I wish these corridors had some sort of shortcut. It would be a lot more convenient."

Roxy chuckled a little. "But Janey, it would b'pretty lame f'you could just skip the whole mmaze whenever y'wanted. That's not in th'caudatian sspirit."

"The caudatian spirit is all well and good," Jane grumbled, "but I like getting out of buildings without getting caught by mobsters, and I wish they had designed this place with this sort of situation in mind."

"Running fro'mobsters ain't exxactly common, Janey," Roxy countered. Jane smiled, but before she could reply, the legislacerator jumped back from the corner they were about to round.

"Back back back, there's a leprechaun down that way!" she said urgently. The group quickly backtracked to the last corridor they'd passed, but another leprechaun, a big one with a striped orange hat, was just turning the corner at the other end. A third leprechaun, a tiny one with a solid purple hat, cut off their last route.

"Did you squander all that luck you used to have, Vriska?" Legislacerator Pyrope called over her shoulder as she held her cane up, ready for battle.

Vriska cackled, and the similarity to the legislacerator's laugh made Jane shudder. It just sounded wrong, coming from someone else's mouth. "Like I'd waste my luck on this fucking farce! I could take these sorry excuses all by myself!"

"Oh?" Legislacerator Pyrope asked with a secretive grin. Jane had a pretty god idea of what that meant. Her suspicions were carried out when the first leprechaun finally rounded the corner and she slammed her cane first into his legs, then on his head, knocking his solid blue hat into the wall. She gestured for Jane and Roxy to move forward past the prone leprechaun, a suggestion Jane was completely willing to follow. As they rounded the corner, the legislacerator shouted, "Have fun, Vriska! We'll send in some capable officers to help you once we get outside!"

"Fuck you, Terezi!" Vriska yelled before the clashing sounds of a battle began. The trio made their way to the exit as soon as possible, not knowing how many other Felt members could be in the building looking for them. Luckily, they were close to the front door, and they made it out without seeing anyone else.

Jane left with Roxy first, hoping there weren't any officers out there with twitchy trigger fingers. Even the twitchiest would pause when they saw someone being carried out, though, so although the officers were surprised, they called in an ambulance for Roxy as soon as Jane explained the situation. Legislacerator Pyrope sent several officers in to arrest the Felt members that Vriska left alive, and Jane heard her say that arresting Vriska wouldn't be a bad thing, either.

"Tha's a little cold, y'know," Roxy slurred from her seat in the back of the ambulance. Of course, she'd heard Terezi's words, too. "She sssaved m'butt. Wouldn't be here without 'er."

Jane smiled and grasped Roxy's hand. "I know, and I'm very grateful she was able to help, but she is apparently a criminal of some sort, judging by that treasure trove she was hiding you in."

"It won't matter, anyway," Legislacerator Pyrope said. Jane jumped, as she hadn't realized the troll had joined them after ordering the officers around. "If Vriska was stupid enough to stick around after I left her like that, she would've been caught ages ago. She's definitely disappeared by now, and taken most of her loot with her."

Roxy smiled. "Yeah, she was tellin' me thissss story 'bout how she's a pirate. W's a good story, too." The medic shushed her, but Roxy waved him off. "Nah, I gotta tell this one. She was sayin' like she'd hunnt down cargo ships as th'came into Sskaia, an' one time she'd hadta swing from one of 'em into a super possh limo cuz the popo was right behind her."

The medic gave Jane an exasperated look, one she recognized quite well after orbits of dealing with Roxy's stubborn attitude. "Roxy, you can share Vriska's boasts later. Right now, I think the medic wants to take you to the hospital." She helped the medic get Roxy onto the gurney inside the ambulance. Once she was settled, the medic asked, "Are you coming with us?"

Jane bit her lip. On the one hand, she wanted to see Roxy settled in at the hospital, and to know that they would take good care of her. On the other hand, she could see the officers coming out of the building now with two of the Felt members in handcuffs, and this was the biggest break their case had gotten yet.

"Go ahead with your friend to the hospital, Detective," Legislacerator Pyrope said in a falsely sweet tone. "I can handle the interrogations just fine all by myself."

That was almost the last straw - nothing would tear Jane apart more than letting the legislacerator get first crack at their perps! The real last straw, though, came from Roxy, who smiled knowingly at Jane. "Go on," she said, "do your job, copper. I'll be fine." She patted the arm of the medic, who was taking her blood pressure at the moment. "This guy's got some real nice m'scles on him, he'll take goood care of me, right?" She grinned sweetly at him, making him blush.

Jane chuckled and said, "Okay, Roxy. I'll come and visit you as soon as I can." She gave Roxy a careful hug and hopped back out of the ambulance. The medic closed the doors behind her, and soon the ambulance was off, speeding to the highest level of traffic (a lane reserved for medical vehicles).

Now she was alone with the legislacerator again. Jane almost regretted her decision, but that was just a knee-jerk reaction at this point. Legislacerator Pyrope wasn't where she had been earlier, though. Looking around, Jane saw her next to the open door of a patrol vehicle, gesturing for her to come over. Jane thought about taking another vehicle just to spite her, but she knew that would be childish and petty, and she was above that. Really. Even if it was very tempting just to see if she could make the legislacerator scowl at her.

Once she climbed in, the legislacerator joined her in the back seat, and the cop who'd originally driven the vehicle over to the crime scene started for the precinct. An uncomfortable silence fell over the pair, as Jane stared out the window and the legislacerator drummed her fingers on the door. Finally, Legislacerator Pyrope said, "I didn't think you would take it this bad, really."

"Oh? You thought I wouldn't be terrified about my friend's life, and that your flippant disregard for her danger wouldn't make me think you would do nothing about it?" Jane scoffed. "Yes, I can see why you'd think that. It sounds completely logical and rational, really."

The legislacerator managed to give her a dramatic eyeroll, even without functioning eyeballs. Jane would have been impressed, under different circumstances. "I'm sure it would surprise you to know, but I do care about people not dying, especially if I can do something about it."

"I'm not upset about your helping Roxy," Jane said indignantly, "I'm upset you kept it a secret! Why would you do that? What was the _point_?"

Legislacerator Pyrope cackled suddenly, causing both Jane and their driver to jump in their seats. "I wasn't lying earlier when I said I didn't want to be associated with Vriska, you know. It's not exactly a good thing for a legislacerator to be a known associate of a criminal, after all."

Jane narrowed her eyes. She could tell the legislacerator wasn't lying, and yet... "That's not the only reason, though, is it? You had some other reason not to tell me."

"Ah..." She'd apparently caught the legislacerator off-guard, which sent a vicious jolt of happiness straight to her heart. _How do you like being put off-balance, hm?_ Legislacerator Pyrope turned her face towards the window as she said, "Well, I didn't want you to get the... wrong impression of me." Although she was turned away, Jane could still see the traces of a blush across the legislacerator's face.

Jane felt like she was suddenly in uncharted territory, but she had to soldier on towards her goal. "And what sort of impression were you trying to avoid?"

The legislacerator coughed. "I'm sure you know something of the quadrant system, Detective. If you didn't, I'd have to wonder if you're even stupider than I'd first thought."

Realizing what the legislacerator was talking about, Jane started blushing as well. "Ah," she choked out, "I see. Alright, then." She didn't know nearly enough about troll quadrants to understand exactly what Terezi meant, but the little she did know was enough for her to leave the conversation at that. The rest of the ride back to the precinct was silent.


	7. Chapter 7

Jane dropped her head on her desk and groaned. _Why is everything in the world so incredibly awful?_ she asked herself. She knew it was mostly the late hour and grumbling stomach getting to her, but the fruitless interrogations hadn't helped matters.

When they'd arrived at the precinct, they had found out that the officers had only been able to arrest two of the leprechauns that attacked them. The third one had also been captured, but the handcuffs that were used on him were apparently faulty, so he was able to slip out of them and escape before he was brought to the precinct.

Jane and Legislacerator Pyrope agreed to split up, and each would interrogate one of the remaining suspects each. Ostensibly it was to save time, but Jane also needed a little space from the legislacerator after their conversation in the patrol vehicle, and she knew the feeling was mutual. This way, they could work separately and the case wouldn't suffer.

Of course, none of that took the suspects themselves into consideration.

When Jane had entered the interrogation room where they were holding the large leprechaun with the striped orange hat, she'd found him huddled under the table with his hands over his eyes. She'd stopped short at the sight - here was someone at least twice her size, trying to hide under a _table_. It was frankly unbelievable.

That had set the tone for the rest of the session. Jane had tried asking him questions while he was under the table, and when that didn't work, she had forced him into the chair the suspect was supposed to sit in. It was bolted to the floor, meaning once he was handcuffed to it, he couldn't move in any meaningful way. Even then, though, he still sat as curled up as possible with his hands over his eyes.

Jane had only gotten him to answer one question, and it was the first one she'd asked. The very first thing she asked when she saw him was "Why are you hiding?" When he heard that, he told her, "So I can go to the future, where you won't be here anymore."

Basically, it was a complete bust. She heard from the other officers that the blue hat leprechaun wasn't any better. In fact, it sounded like he was worse - the legislacerator hadn't gotten a single answer from him about anything, not even his name. He just stared off into space, barely acknowledging anyone else was even in the room.

 _The only good thing about all this is those bozos are off the streets,_ Jane thought. _And that Roxy is safe, of course._ She sighed and rolled her head around on her desk. She almost certainly looked ridiculous, but it made her feel a little better.

A knock on her desk made her sit straight up. She hadn't even noticed anyone walking around, let alone approaching her desk. Of all people, the police chief was standing there. "You've had a long shift, Detective," the chief said.

"You could say that, Chief," Jane said diplomatically. "This is an important case, though."

"Well, I'm saying you need to go home. Come back with a clear head, you're not doing any good here right now. In fact," the chief continued, "take an extra day off."

Jane jumped to her feet. "Two days? But Chief, the case -"

"Has hit an impasse," the chief interrupted. "Taking a couple of days off at this point won't change anything, Detective. Go home, relax, and come back ready to work."

Jane hated to admit it, but the chief was right. There wasn't much she could do immediately, and she should take whatever extra time for herself she could get. "Understood, Chief. I'll see you in a couple of days, then."

"Good." The chief nodded and walked away. Jane sighed as she started to clean up her desk a little. Even knowing it was the best thing to do, it still rankled to be sent home like that.

 _Go home, sleep, and then you can complain about being babied,_ she told herself.

* * *

Jane barely made it home before collapsing into bed. The adrenaline crash from rescuing Roxy, the investigation of Spades Slick's murder, and the tension between her and Legislacerator Pyrope, all on top of the previous night's excitement meant she was practically dead on her feet from the moment she stepped out of the precinct.

She slept through most of her first day off. She hadn't really planned on doing that, but apparently her body needed the sleep, and Jane always believed in taking care of herself whenever possible. _Whenever I'm not distracted by a case, at least,_ she thought.

Baking muffins and listening to pop music took up the rest of her afternoon. As she stirred the batter to the perfect consistency, she could almost feel all her tension dripping away. She considered making a nice meal for herself, but the empty fridge put a stop to that thought. _I'll get some groceries after my shopping trip with Kanaya tomorrow,_ she decided as another of her frozen meals got popped into the oven. After her meal was eaten, she climbed into bed with a pulpy detective novel and went to sleep early.

The next day, after feasting on her delicious muffins ( _not_ blueberry muffins, thank you very much!), she knocked on Kanaya's door. "One moment, please!" Jane heard the troll say from somewhere in her apartment. There was the sound of clinking dishes for a little while, and then the door opened. "Ah, hello, Detective Crocker! Sorry to keep you waiting, I was just cleaning up a little."

"Oh, no problem, really," Jane said as she smiled. "Are you ready for our shopping adventure?"

"Just give me one more minute and I'll be entirely ready," Kanaya said before she closed the door again. Jane looked around the hallway, not sure what to do with herself. It felt a little weird not to be invited inside, but trolls did have very different ideas about private spaces than humans did. She'd have to chalk it up to different cultural standards.

Of course, thinking about troll culture reminded her of something she'd been determinedly avoiding thinking about. Jane groaned and leaned against the wall opposite Kanaya's door as she thought about what the legislacerator had said two days ago about "quadrants" and "not wanting to give the wrong impression". _What impression should I be getting, then?_ Jane asked herself fruitlessly. She just didn't know enough about quadrants to interpret how the legislacerator was acting around her, and that was starting to become a huge problem.

"Ready!" Kanaya called out as she entered the hallway, locking her door behind her. "Sorry to keep you waiting."

Jane stood up straight and smiled again, trying to banish her preoccupation with Legislacerator Pyrope from her mind. "Don't worry about it, really. You're doing me a favor, after all."

Kanaya laughed. "A very easy favor, really. Now, let's get moving - I want plenty of time to find the perfect outfit for you, after all." She began walking down the hall, and Jane followed, a new thought coming to mind. _I suppose if I want help understanding trolls, I should really be asking one._ Jane didn't know very many trolls (not well enough to ask questions about this sort of thing, at least) - really, the only ones she knew from her own experience were Legislacerator Pyrope, the mediviscerator Aradia, and Kanaya herself. Asking the legislacerator was obviously out of the question, and she had only spoken with Aradia once or twice, not nearly enough to discuss personal matters. Kanaya, however, was very understanding, and she would almost certainly help Jane understand the situation she seemed to have stumbled into.

Jane smiled, happy to have some sort of a plan about the whole thing finally. _At the very least, Kanaya can let me know how to let a troll down gently,_ she thought, ignoring the small part of her brain that wasn't really certain she wanted to do that at all.

* * *

Jane rifled through the rack of shirts, trying to find something snazzy enough for the gala. This was the third store in the area they'd visited, and so far nothing was quite right - not by Kanaya's standards, at least. Jane almost regretted asking for her help, but the gala _was_ a very classy event, and Kanaya was certainly more in-tune with the current fashion trends, even across species.

Kanaya herself was rifling through shirts on another rack, muttering under her breath. "No, that's not quite right, hm, not a good color, and those sleeves are just a little too long, no, no, no..." Each shirt she looked at was quickly considered, and then pushed aside.

Stymied as they were in their search, Jane decided to pluck up her courage and start what could very well become an awkward conversation. "Kanaya?"

"Yes?" The troll answered absently as she scrutinized another shirt.

"May I ask you something about troll culture? It may be something you don't want to talk about, which I would completely understand."

Kanaya said, "No, go ahead," still focusing on the rack in front of her.

Jane bit her lip and took a deep breath, trying to calm the anxiety suddenly rising in her. "Could you help me understand quadrants a little better?"

"Oh!" At that, Kanaya looked straight at Jane, a mild blush already starting to show on her cheeks. "Well, um, yes, I suppose I could help, in the interest of interspecies cultural understanding."

"Good," Jane said nervously, "Um, thank you."

Both fell quiet, neither of them certain how to start. Finally, Kanaya ventured, "Do you know anything about quadrants, or...?" She trailed off hopefully.

"Oh, I know a little about them!" Jane quickly said. "I know the names and all that. I suppose I'm... more curious about their practical applications?"

Kanaya looked alarmed, her blush quickly spreading. "Practical as in... er... the _physical_ aspects, or -"

"Oh, no, not anything like that!" Now Jane had a matching blush. "It's - There's someone I'm working with on the force, and she did something that I'm a little confused about, and when I asked her about the reasoning behind her actions, she said she 'didn't want to give me the wrong impression'. So I guess I'd like some advice on what sort of impression she _is_ trying to give me."

"Oh, is that all?" Kanaya looked very relieved. "Yes, I can certainly help you figure that out. What exactly has been happening between you two?"

Now Jane had to pause, as she wasn't sure how to explain the situation between herself and the legislacerator without going into all the details. After a few moments of consideration, she said, "Well, in the course of my current investigation, one of my friends was put in danger. I told... this troll about it, and she initially blew me off." Even just remembering that conversation made Jane scowl. "Later, though, I found out she'd arranged protection for my friend without telling me, which ended up saving my friend's life." Jane looked at Kanaya, who had a thoughtful look on her face. "Well? Do you have any idea about what's going on?"

Kanaya smiled and said, "Yes, I think I might. Does this troll generally try to frustrate you or show you up?"

"Yes," Jane said as she thought back on how Legislacerator Pyrope called her annoying nicknames, insulted her expertise, and just bothered her in any way possible.

"Well, it sounds like a very basic black crush to me," Kanaya said, returning to rifling through shirts.

"What?" Jane almost couldn't believe what she'd heard. "That's the hate quadrant, isn't it? Where the two trolls fight and try to kill each other?"

"Oh, not always," Kanaya said. "Really, if your kismesis is trying to kill you, it's time to get an auspistice. No, generally speaking, a kismesis is more like a true rival, someone where you simply can't stand letting them beat you." She shrugged. "At least, that's how my matesprit has described it to me from a human perspective, and I trust her insight on the matter. It seems accurate enough, in any case."

"Oh." Jane had never heard it described in that way. In the troll movies Jake had occasionally shown when hosting his movie nights, the caliginous storylines usually ended in death for one or both participants, unless someone intervened and brought them into the ashen quadrant. Of course, Roxy and Dirk had always said they were way too dramatic and not indicative of a true kismesissitude, and they'd always worked with more trolls than Jane, so she trusted their words. Neither of them had ever explained what a true kismesissitude actually looked like, though, so she'd never known exactly what was wrong about the movies' depictions.

That changed everything about how she interpreted Legislacerator Pyrope's actions. Now she wasn't just an infuriating coworker trying to rile her up, she was a coworker who was... _flirting_ with her - very heavily flirting, if Kanaya's quick understanding was any indication - and now she had to figure out what to do about it.

Her gut reaction was to sit down with the legislacerator and firmly explain that she wasn't interested in any alien romantic shenanigans. When Jane thought about doing that, though, Legislacerator Pyrope's vicious grin flashed across her mind's eye, and her heart started to beat a little faster. Tentatively, she thought, _What if I..._ don't _reject her out of hand?_ She'd never considered dating a troll, but the legislacerator did challenge her like very few people had, and there were moments when she was even excited by the troll's reactions. _The look on her face when I found that secret passage..._ She'd been too mad at the time to really register how the legislacerator looked, but now she felt a little thrill at how she'd bested Legislacerator Pyrope at something, even if it was something as minor as that. She couldn't help but smile victoriously, belated as it was.

While she'd been lost in her thoughts, Kanaya had been splitting her attention between the clothing racks and Jane's face. Seeing Jane smile, she asked, "Was I able to help you understand, then?"

"Oh!" That shook Jane out of her head and back to the real world. "Yes, thank you, Kanaya. I think I understand the situation much better now."

"Good! I'm glad I was able to help." Kanaya flipped through a few more shirts before saying, "If you're ever curious about anything else related to Alternian culture, I'd be more than willing to help. I'm sure my matesprit would be, as well."

Jane smiled softly, touched by her neighbor's offer. "Thank you, Kanaya. I may take you up on that offer."

Kanaya smiled back, then looked around in mild exasperation. "I don't think we'll find anything worthy of the gala in this section. I'll suppose we'll have to go with a dress, after all - I thought a shirt and skirt combination would be striking, but there simply aren't any styles here that would complement you well enough."

"That's fine," Jane said. "I just hope we find something before the gala comes!" Kanaya laughed as they headed over the dress section of the store.

* * *

After Kanaya finally found a dress for her befitting her high standards and she ran a few errands for herself, Jane went to the hospital Roxy was staying in. She found her way to Roxy's room easily enough, and was soon face-to-face with the 'hacker queen' again. Roxy had been watching television when Jane entered, but as soon as she saw Jane, she shouted, "Jane!" and turned the television off. "Get over here, and give me a hug right now!"

"Well, you must be doing better. You're certainly bossy enough," Jane joked as she walked over and did exactly as commanded. She was surprised when Roxy gave her one of the strongest hugs she could in her position, but after a moment she understood why, and hugged her strongly in return. After all, for all of Roxy's bluster and swagger, she'd been in grave danger just a few days prior, a situation she wasn't used to at all. Awkward as the hug was, with Jane leaning halfway over the bed and Roxy mostly prone, it was also really nice.

The pair stayed in their embrace for a while, just enjoying each other's presence, before Roxy finally relaxed and pulled back a little, prompting Jane to do the same. They shared a smile before Jane pulled a chair up to Roxy's bedside. "So, what's the prognosis?"

Roxy rolled her eyes. "Wow, Janey, you are like one of three people in the world who knows what that word means that isn't a doctor."

"I guess you're also one of those three, then, aren't you?" Jade countered.

"Ha! Guess you've got me there, copper. Shoulda known better than to try and sneak that one past you." Roxy stretched her arms up over her head while yawning. "The docs say I just got a decent concussion, nothin' too bad. They wanna keep me here like one more day just to make sure I'm totally fine, but it's really just them being worrywarts. I'm feeling tons better."

"Good, I'm glad," Jane said. "So you'll soon be back to surfing the web and striking fear into your foes?"

"Yup, got my fear-striking arm all warmed up already." Roxy circled one of her arms as best she could, as if to demonstrate what she'd said. "Oh but hey, speaking of foes..." She shoved one arm under her pillow, rooting around for something. She found whatever she was looking for and handed it to Jane, who took it and examined it carefully. _A data stick?_ "That's somethin' I managed to get off my computer before the pirate hussled me out of my apartment. Should be all the stuff I found on what the Felt is doing."

"Really?" Jane turned the data stick over and over in her hands, now more conscious of its importance. "What were you able to find?"

Roxy stared up at the ceiling, obviously trying to remember. "Let's see... there were a couple of things about pick-ups and drop-offs and stuff like that... a few things like order forms, I don't remember what those were for... oh, and there was this official-looking message about something called 'Lord English', whatever that is. Looked like it came from pretty high on the food chain."

"Lord English?" Jane frowned, not recognizing the term. "That sounds a little ominous."

"Yeah, Skaia's rough enough without getting nobility involved," Roxy quipped.

Jane wracked her brain for some sliver of an idea as to what Lord English could refer to, but she drew a total blank. Regardless, the information would certainly be of use to their investigation. She pocketed the data stick as she thanked Roxy. "Hey, no big," Roxy replied. "I am totes on top of the whole hacky thing, their system is serving me like the fanciest butler you ever knew. I've got half a mind to rename it Wadsworth once I get outta here. Or maybe Jeeves, I'm still goin' back and forth on it."

"Wait, Roxy," Jane said seriously. "Once you're out of here, stay clear of the Felt's computer systems. Understand?"

Roxy frowned. "Hey, I know the whole me being attacked thing was scary and all, but it turned out okay, and I can still steal out plenty of info for -"

" _No_ , Roxy," Jane interrupted. "You shouldn't have been so deeply involved in the first place. I really appreciate all the information you've gotten for me so far, but you have to stay out of it now." Jane looked Roxy straight in the eyes, trying to project all the worry and love she felt through them. "Please. For me."

Roxy held her gaze for a few moments, but finally she sighed and sat back. "Yeah, I guess I can back off and let you do your whole thing now. Guess I'd be a pretty shitty friend if I kept going and worried you even more, huh?"

Jane laid one of her hands on Roxy's shoulder. "You could never be a bad friend to me, no matter how hard you tried." Roxy reached up and squeezed Jane's hand with one of her own, giving Jane a grateful smile. When that smile was broken by a large yawn, Jane stood up. "I suppose I ought to leave you to your rest, then."

"Yeah, the nurses are pretty strict about that sorta thing. Makes me wonder if they're living vicariously through me or something, since they probs don't get nearly enough sleep with their jobs." Roxy yawned again and waved her hand at Jane. "Alright, get outta here before I conk out."

Jane smiled and gave Roxy another hug. "I'm glad you're okay, Roxy, and thank you again for everything you've done."

"You're welcome, Janey," Roxy said as she returned Jane's hug.


	8. Chapter 8

The next day, Jane returned to work and downloaded the data Roxy had given her to her computer. She spent time sifting through it all and sorting it into usable files of information. When she was done, she forwarded certain groups of files to different officers in the precinct, confident they would be able to use the information within to their advantage, and without getting in the way of the larger investigation.

The main file with which she was concerned was the one relating to Lord English. The phrase was usually mentioned in passing, with the most explicit uses coming from messages that had been heavily encrypted before Roxy found them. Nothing explained exactly what Lord English was, even something as simple as whether it was a person or a codename for some sort of operation. Nevertheless, the tone which was used whenever discussing Lord English made it seem incredibly important to the Felt leadership, which meant Jane would have to figure out what it was and how to disrupt the Felt's plans in regards to it.

Jane stretched in her chair, proud of the work she'd done. _Wait until Legislacerator Pyrope gets a whiff of this!_ she thought. She paused, realizing she would certainly have to bring this information to the legislacerator's attention - it was guaranteed to give their investigation a brand new direction to follow, something they needed very badly.

More importantly, though (for herself, at least), this would also give her a chance to... test the waters with the legislacerator, so to speak. She'd decided after her conversation with Kanaya that, if Legislacerator Pyrope seemed romantically interested in her, that she would be willing to give it a shot. _After all, the others are always telling me to expand my horizons, and this is certainly something I would never have considered before._

Her mind made up, Jane headed straight for the legislacerator's office, data stick in hand.

* * *

Terezi slumped in her chair, ignoring the paperwork in front of her. She'd been forced home by the police chief for a couple of days, and while the chance to catch up on proper meals had been appreciated, she hadn't been able to rest much at all. Somehow, her sopor slime didn't help her to sleep at all like it usually did, and her waking moments were spent fretting over the investigation that she couldn't pursue.

Now she was back at work, no better rested than she had been before her forced time off, and still at a loss on how to go forward with the Felt investigation. "Why can't I catch a fucking break," she muttered under her breath. A quick knock on the door jolted her upright. "Come in!" she said sharply, grabbing some papers so she looked less like she'd been slacking off.

Her visitor turned out to be Detective Crocker, who had a mischievous smirk on her face. "Hello, Legislacerator Pyrope," she practically chirped, "I hope your days off were as restful as mine!" She looked as though she'd had two entire perigees off, not just two days. Terezi's gut rolled with hatred, a feeling she immediately squashed.

"They were adequate, Detective," Terezi said, trying to keep her tone professional and detached. "Did you have something to tell me?"

The detective's grin grew wider somehow, and Terezi felt a flash of something. _Is this how I look to other people when I do that?_ she asked herself. Somehow, the idea of the detective already picking up her habits gave her a small thrill.

"Here," Detective Crocker said as she handed something to Terezi. "There's some very important information on that data stick."

"Oh?" Terezi downloaded the information without delay and opened the file. Contained within were bits of data filched from the Felt's servers, all of which seemed to be concerned with something called... "Lord English?"

"Yes!" Jane leaned onto Terezi's desk, looming over her slightly. Terezi licked her lips absentmindedly. "I think discovering whatever this Lord English thing is should be our next step, don't you?"

Terezi leaned back, trying to create a little space between herself and the detective, even though part of her really didn't want to. "Hm... I'm not so sure," she said. "It doesn't seem all that important to me. Just random chatter, nothing more."

The detective scowled a little, causing Terezi to grin reflexively. _I could never get enough of that face,_ she thought. She quickly realized the path her thoughts were leading her down, though, and wrenched them back onto the case at hand. _Stop that, Pyrope,_ she scolded herself. _There's nothing there, remember._

The detective's next words stopped all her thoughts in their tracks, though. "Legislacerator Pyrope, I know this might be difficult for you to understand, but I've managed to give this investigation the kick in the pants it needed." She smirked again, and this time Terezi could practically taste the challenge in her eyes. "I think we both knew who's the better investigator now, don't we?"

Before Terezi could marshal her thoughts again, the detective turned and walked straight out of her office, a slight swagger swinging her hips. She left the door open behind her, giving Terezi one last smirk before strutting away.

Terezi slumped in her chair again, this time from a sheer overload of thoughts and feelings. That was how Aradia found her a few minutes later, as she came in to give Terezi her official autopsy report on Spades Slick. "Terezi?" Aradia asked from the doorway, "Are you okay?"

Terezi's face stayed angled towards the ceiling as she stated very simply, "I think Detective Crocker may have been flirting with me just now, and I've just figured out that I really, truly hate her."

"Oh good, you've gotten past denying it. That was really boring." Aradia stepped into Terezi's office and closed the door. She came around next to where Terezi was sitting and sat on the desk, her hands clasped in her lap after dropping her report on the desk. "So, whatcha gonna do about it?"

"Do?" Terezi turned her head towards Aradia and threw her arms in the air. "What in hell am I supposed to do? I'm an absolute mess at relationships with trolls! How am I supposed to even think about trying one with a human?" She dropped her arms, only to cross them over her chest and... well, she'd never use the word pout, since it was unbecoming of a legislacerator to do such a childish thing. Her mouth was definitely in a pout-like position, though.

Aradia thought for a second. "Well, maybe you're bad at relationships with trolls because you're meant to be with humans." Terezi stared at her blankly, letting her glasses drop so Aradia got the impact of her scarred eyes. She simply giggled, though, unaffected by the legislacerator's dry gaze. "Oh, lighten up! You don't have to take it so seriously, you know. It's not like we're mandated to contribute to drone season anymore."

"That is true," Terezi said thoughtfully. The Condesce had scaled back the mating laws considerably since trolls had begun to cohabitate with other species. It was difficult to get a drone to recognize the difference between a troll and a trolloid species, meaning getting buckets from intermingled trolls had a huge potential for turning into a diplomatic nightmare. The resulting sexual revolution was still being worked out, as some trolls felt less pressured to find their One True Quadrantmates, while others still felt the weight of thousands of sweeps of Alternian culture driving them forward.

Terezi had never given it much thought, but she did tend to act as if every relationship had to last forever. _This might be just what I need,_ she admitted to herself. _Something simple, where it doesn't matter very much if I screw things up._

Aradia watched Terezi relax as she thought things over. "Besides," she added, "humans do blackrom a little differently than most trolls, so it's not like you'd make the same mistakes again."

Terezi raised her eyebrow at Aradia. "Oh?" she said, just waiting for the punchline.

"Yeah! You'll get to make a whole bunch of new mistakes!" Aradia said with a shit-eating grin. Terezi grabbed one of Aradia's horns and pushed, throwing her off-balance. She nearly toppled off the desk, and she definitely threw Terezi's paperwork into chaos, but she managed to right herself without any major incidents. "Hey now! Don't be treating me like that, or the detective will get jealous!"

Terezi cackled at that. "I think you mean I should do it all the more, then!"

Aradia laughed, too, happy to see her friend finally relaxing again.

* * *

"What was that? Lord English?" The regulator tapped his claw on his desk, thinking the words over. "Nah, nothing comes to mind. I'll keep it in mind, though, and I'll let you know if any of my pigeons start singing." He turned back to his work, obviously done with the conversation.

* * *

The ochreblood troll shivered when she heard the words. "Lord English? I hear it's a virus, and it'll crash every computer this side of Veil once it gets unleashed." The troll pronounced her k's weirdly, making them sound almost like static. "Nothing's crashing my systems, though. I've got protections on every level a hacker could think of, and a few they probably couldn't. My stuff's safe as the Condesce's jewels."

Her ceruleanblood friend laughed. "Unless the virus is, someone just walking in and, smashing your computer to bits."

"Would you shut up about that? There's no way that actually happened!" The pair started arguing about different urban legends, the original question completely abandoned.

* * *

The squiddle shook her head. "Nope, never heard of anything called Lord English! Sorry!"

* * *

"It's obviously just some rumor," the self-important crocodilian said. "Some idiot wants their time in the spotlight, and so they're making up whatever ridiculous stories they can get people to believe in."

"But what exactly are those stories?"

"I certainly have no idea! I'm not some rumormonger! Now get out of my way, I've got a stock market to orchestrate." The short reptilian hussled down the street, eager to move on with his life.

* * *

"Hm... nah, I ain't got on the knowing of that," the indigoblood said. He leaned back against the slimy alley wall. "Ain't much a motherfucker knows on anything, though. Used to be a better way with life, you know?" His head dropped to his chest. "Not a motherfucking thing good with it now, though. Not a motherfucking thing." He fell silent, only the slow rise and fall of his chest evidence that he was still alive.

* * *

"I'm sorry, what was the name again?" The white carapacian asked, distracted from sorting the mail in her bag. "Lord English?" She shook her head. "No, I've never heard of any Lord English, and I've been delivering mail in Skaia for over ten orbits. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a job to do!" She nodded her head politely and walked away, smiling as she pulled out a pile of letters.

* * *

The caudatian screwed up her face, trying to remember. "Lord English, Lord English... It does sound familiar for some reason..." She thought for a few more seconds, then whipped out her tongue as she exclaimed, "Oh! Of course! It was on the magtrain one night! I heard these fellows saying Lord English was going to take the whole city by storm!"

"Do you remember anything else about the people who said that, or anything else they talked about?"

"Hm... no, sorry. I was busy with my music - I just heard them in between some songs I was listening to." She shrugged. "Sorry I couldn't help more!"

* * *

The elderly leprechaun laughed. "Lord English? You're chasing down old stories like that now?"

"Is Lord English an old story, then?"

"One of the oldest I know." He leaned back on the bench, taking in the park around him for a moment. "They say Lord English comes to bring death to those who try and escape it. You can't escape death, though - after all, it's already here!" He laughed again, hard enough that he sent himself into a coughing fit. After he'd recovered, he said, "People always start talking about Lord English when they think the world's coming up empty. It's really not worth talking about."

* * *

"Lord English? Sounds like a total douchebag if you ask me," the oliveblood said. "Like some punched up prick who thinks he's better than everyone else. Who even uses titles anymore? That's so fucking lame."

* * *

Jane sat at her desk, exhausted by her investigations. She carefully peeled off the false moustache she'd been wearing - it helped protect her identity a little when she investigated around alien species. Since many of them didn't understand human genders or their traditionally assumed appearances, wearing a moustache would confuse the issue if anyone started asking about the nosy detective in the area.

She'd been running around Skaia for nearly a week, trying to track down any information about Lord English she could find. All the joy she'd felt earlier in the week when she thought she'd finally gotten one over on Legislacerator Pyrope had dissipated in the face of hundreds of rumors and ignorance. The most helpful person she'd asked had been the old leprechaun in the park, and all he'd been able to tell her was that Lord English was basically the leprechaunian boogeyman.

She could tell from the data Roxy had given her that most of the references weren't about some vague cultural phantom, though - Lord English was something real to the Felt, and she needed to figure out what it was before it was too late.

There wasn't anything else she could do, though. Hitting the streets had given her practically nothing, and the gala was nearly upon them. Jane looked through her notes one last time before putting them away. The next night, she would be going undercover with the legislacerator, and she wanted to be able to catch any reference to Lord English that she could.

Thoughts of the gala caused butterflies to start swarming in her stomach. She and the legislacerator hadn't crossed paths much in the last week, as each had investigated Lord English in their own way, but those moments they did share were tense and exciting, filled with minor jabs and backhanded compliments. Rather than feeling upset or hurt by Legislacerator Pyrope's actions, Jane felt invigorated. It was like she was racing ahead somewhere, trying to keep just ahead of some major catastrophe. Just thinking of spending more time with the legislacerator excited Jane, and so as far as she was concerned, the gala couldn't come soon enough.


	9. Chapter 9

As she waited for a free seat on a transporter, Jane fidgeted with her dress and checked her invitation one more time. It still stated the date, time, and location of the gala, as it had every other time she'd checked it. The chief xirself had been invited, along with xir partner, but xie had handed the invitations over gratefully. "Between being home with my family and going to one of these stuffy pissing fests, I'll take home every time," xie'd said.

That had been a stroke of luck, since invitations to this gala were highly coveted. The biggest celebrities and business moguls of Skaia were all coming, as were many political leaders from all the species residing in Skaia. It promised to be the event everyone would talk about for orbits to come.

The ostensible hosts were the dimencetaceans, of course, but they'd referred many times to a "dear friend" from Skaia itself that had handled most of the details. There had certainly been a deft hand behind the invitations, so whoever was truly hosting the party was someone on top of the political games in play. Jane was willing to bet that that person was either the Felt's target, or part of the Felt themselves.

She was itching to get to her investigation, but the transporters provided to ferry guests from the planet's surface to the embassy weren't cooperating. There were some guests who would be arriving by their own power, but most Skaians didn't bother with interplanetary travel often enough to invest in ships capable of achieving low-orbit flight. Thus, the transporters, which were about as nuanced or classy as a school bus. They were able to transport about one hundred guests per flight, but they weren't very good at anything else. _I'm glad we wouldn't have to depend on these sluggish crates if anything happened up there,_ she thought. _That'd be the icing on a disastrous cake for sure!_

Finally, another transporter arrived, one with a free seat she was able to snag. She buckled herself in and tuned out the safety procedures, as she was already very familiar with them due to the few times she'd been able to visit Dirk at his workplace. Instead, she considered what she would do when she finally arrived at the gala itself.

The trip to the embassy was boring, but not very long - like the magtrains, Skaian ships were usually fast enough to make short work of long distances. In what felt like no time at all, Jane was disembarking into the embassy's courtyard - an enclosed garden with a transparent roof that had a gorgeous view of Veil and the stars beyond. The garden was filled with plants, some native to Veil and others unfamiliar to Jane. She assumed the unfamiliar ones were imported from the dimencetacean's home planet. Scattered around the garden were gorgeously intricate water fountains and water sculptures, each of which seemed to honor historical or mythological figures. Most of them were dimencetacean, of course, but here and there Jane could see figures related to the species of Veil, as well. _I wonder if this is where Lord English is hiding?_ Jane laughed a little at her own joke as she followed the other guests into the embassy proper.

Inside, after shuffling through the entrance hall and a few other rooms that seemed more functional than fashionable, Jane finally arrived in a cavernous chamber that was already half-filled with people. The ovular chamber could easily fit her entire apartment building five times over, probably with room to spare. The entrance into the room was near one of the shorter ends, and at the far end of the room was a large platform, which would obviously be where any speeches for the night would be given. There seemed to be a group of musicians gathered on it at the moment, but they were too far away for Jane to hear if they were playing anything. Besides, the floating dimencetacean near the stage was more striking. It was obviously one of the ambassadors hosting the party. The vast size of the room made sense in context of the dimencetacean's size, as it completely dwarfed the guests standing nearby.

Along one long edge of the chamber, tables filled with food lined the wall. _Probably appetizers and other light things,_ Jane guessed - dinner was not provided as part of the festivities, but every good host knew some amount of food would be expected, even if it was only finger sandwiches and the like. People in white and green uniforms also circulated with trays of food and drink - _to prevent a pile-up near the food tables, of course._

There were many small tables scattered throughout the room, each with three or four chairs attached, for those who didn't like to stand for long periods of time, or who physically couldn't. Only a small handful were occupied as of yet, but as the evening wore on, more would certainly find use. For now, though, most of the guests were slowly circulating between the food tables and the musician's platform, forming clumps that would dissipate after all polite conversation had been achieved, only to form more moments later.

Jane had confidently walked in with the rest of the guests on her transporter, but now that she'd arrived, she wasn't sure what to do with herself. Finding out why the Felt considered this gala so important was obviously her primary goal, but the steps to achieve that goal were less obvious than they'd seemed before. She was suddenly very conscious of her social standing in comparison to everyone else in the room - while she was very proud of what she'd done with her life, none of it gave her any sort of common ground to break the ice with the people who had actually been invited; that was before taking into consideration the fact that she was supposed to be undercover, and therefore had to avoid any discussion of her career.

As all of that crashed onto her at once, Jane started to panic. She squeezed her fists tight at her sides and focused on breathing in and out, but none of that helped her racing brain calm down. She'd almost succumbed to her instinctive desire to just run out of the room when something thwacked her in the thigh. "Ow!" she yelped, rubbing at the spot. She turned and saw Legislacerator Pyrope standing at her side. "Oh! Legis-" Jane swallowed the title, remembering just in time that they weren't officers that night. "I mean, T-Terezi. Hello."

"Good evening, Miss Blueberry Muffin!" Terezi replied happily. Jane would have scowled at the nickname, as she considered it cheating, but she was a little distracted by the legislacerator's attire. She was wearing a floor-length strapless evening gown, and the simplest way to describe the fabric was a riot of colors. Every color of the known rainbow appeared at least once on that dress, with special attention given to a large swath of leopard print across the bodice. It should have been absolutely hideous, and yet the legislacerator looked _incredible_.

Jane would have compared it to her own dress - a more modest empire-waist dress with a high-low hem that ran a gradient from light blue at the top (a shade nearly matching her eyes) to a deep midnight blue at the bottom - and felt as though she'd lost some sort of challenge, if it wasn't for the look on Terezi's face. Somehow, even without working eyes, Terezi was making it obvious that she was giving Jane a very lingering once-over. Jane swallowed nervously, feeling a small blush spread across her cheeks. She cast her own eyes over Terezi once more, following the dress as it curved over her body, and stopping short when she saw just how much leg the dress revealed. Seeing Terezi in that dress made their potential relationship feel more real than a week's worth of vague flirting ever could.

Jane took a deep breath, trying to center herself. "I can't believe they didn't stop you on the way in for being a danger to others in that thing. Are you trying to blind everyone around you?"

"If I was, I certainly wouldn't use this delicious dress," Terezi replied. "I'd have a much more _efficient_ method in mind." She grinned, and Jane didn't know if she wanted to wipe that grin off her face with her words, or with her mouth. Both seemed like very good options.

Words seemed the safer choice, though, considering the increasing number of guests around them. "I'm certain you have plenty of ideas on how to cause suffering to others, although I don't think this crowd deserves your attention. They've done very little wrong, after all."

Terezi laughed and gestured wildly with her cane. The only reason she didn't hit anyone was because they managed to dodge. "These people? They're already blinder than I am. How else could they consider this gathering an honor, rather than a nuisance?" Despite her broad gestures, Terezi spoke quietly. _At least she knows not to completely alienate everyone around her,_ Jane thought. Their job would be made even more difficult than it already was if no one would talk to them.

Jane knew that sort of a problem could be ameliorated by parting from Terezi now and mingling on her own, but she didn't want to do that just yet. It was comforting to talk to someone she knew, even if the conversation was mostly partially veiled attempts at getting a rise out of each other.

Terezi continued, "Your original conclusion is wrong, by the way. These people have certainly done plenty wrong, and very little justice has been done in response." She tried to swing her cane around again as she spoke, but this time Jane caught her arm before it could go too far. Terezi attempted to pull her arm back, but Jane was a naturally strong person, and she built upon that strength with a good workout regimen. There were certainly plenty of trolls and leprechauns who would give her trouble, but the legislacerator definitely wasn't one of them. When she realized that, Terezi scowled at Jane for a second, and Jane resisted the urge to pull her into a kiss. Instead, she smiled victoriously. She held on for a few seconds more, just to make her point, and then she let go.

Terezi kept that arm at her side, playing at her dress with the other hand. She breathed in deeply; Jane wasn't sure if she was trying to compose herself or just getting a better view of the party. _Or both,_ she thought. She felt a hint of pride at even the possibility that she had thrown the legislacerator off-balance, as it had happened so rarely in the course of getting to know each other.

Jane was about to say something when Terezi suddenly swiveled her head and focused her attention in one direction, taking deep sniffs. _She's acting like a hunting dog that's found the prey's scent,_ Jane thought, remembering adventures she'd had on occasion with Jake's family. On the one hand, the thought of Terezi as a bloodhound sniffing around for a rabbit was a hilarious mental image. Jane had to stifle her laughter when she thought of it, though, because Terezi's expression was practical and calculating. Sadly, it seemed as though their playful banter had to come to an end.

"Do you smell someone you recognize?" Jane asked quietly, bringing Terezi's attention back to her. Terezi subtly nodded, a gesture Jane returned. "Then I suppose this is where we split up for the moment."

"Yes, I suppose it is," Terezi agreed. Jane started to edge away, but Terezi gripped her hand before she got very far. When Jane turned back to her, Terezi said, "Don't you dare mess up here, Crocker. I don't want to have to catch someone else up on the investigation, and the chief definitely won't let me work this alone."

Jane rolled her eyes. "You're the one who might have been made here, Pyrope. I don't think I'm the one in danger of messing up the investigation. However," Jane continued, "I'll make sure to watch my back. After all, I couldn't live with myself if I knew you had managed to avoid danger and I hadn't." Terezi started to blush, and Jane wondered if that had been a little too forward. She didn't have the cultural expertise to know the difference between subtle and blatant blackflirting, after all. Terezi didn't say anything, though - she merely squeezed her hand and slipped away into the crowd - so it must have been alright.

Now that Terezi was gone, Jane found herself at a bit of a loss again. Instead of panicking like earlier, though, she picked up a glass from a passing waiter and found a group of human politicians discussing educational reform, an always-popular topic amongst the voting population. _I can't let Terezi do all the investigating, now can I?_

* * *

Jane sat at one of the small tables, putting her empty glass down and giving her aching feet a rest. She'd wandered from conversation to conversation for the better part of an hour, trying to figure out who amongst the guests was most likely connected to the Felt, and so far she hadn't gotten any leads. She did know more about the social gossip of the city, but that wasn't very helpful.

She rolled her shoulders a few times, trying to ease the tension that had built up from disguising herself all night. Being a new detective on the force was a real stroke of luck for her; since she hadn't been part of any cases yet, no one would recognize her as a judicial officer. She managed to pass herself off as the representative of a baking tycoon, drawing upon discussions her father and uncle had had about business practices and her own extensive knowledge of baking. Most people she'd talked to didn't care, and when she'd met someone who was more curious than she wanted, she'd found an excuse to leave the conversation quickly.

Jane reached for her glass before she remembered it was empty. She was internally debating whether or not it was worth it to get another drink when someone standing behind her placed one down on the table. She suppressed her reflexive jump and turned around to find a small... _something_ standing there.

The... well, whatever it was, stood about four feet high and was wearing a white suit with a green shirt and bowtie. It seemed mostly humanoid, but instead of a regular head, with a mouth or eyes or a nose, it just had a large white sphere. That was why Jane couldn't help but jump when she heard, "Sorry for startling you, but I knew you'd be needing another drink by now, and I simply couldn't allow one of my guests to want for anything." Even without a mouth, she could somehow hear it perfectly. _Telepathy? Or maybe that sphere is just a shell of some sort and it has an actual mouth inside somewhere._ Jane had never seen a creature like it before, and she was definitely not a xenobiologist.

The creature spoke up again, saying, "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Doctor Stanley Cratch, and I am the host of this evening's festivities."

"Jane Egbert," she replied - stealing her uncle's name for the night had felt like the best course of action. It - or rather, _he_ held his hand out, and Jane stood quickly to shake it. Her father had always taught her that a proper greeting should be done on one's feet, so as to give the best impression, and his advice hadn't steered her wrong yet. His hand was oddly soft, and while his grip was sound, his arm seemed... floppy, somehow. 

After shaking her hand, Dr. Cratch circled around to sit in the other chair at her table. Jane watched him as he made himself comfortable, his movements almost childlike to her, and although she couldn't quite see over the table, she knew his feet must dangle well above the ground. _A very odd creature to host an event like this,_ she thought. _That must be an assumed name - it's far too human to be his real name. Is he from the dimencetacean's homeworld? Is that why I've never met an alien like him before? And why,_ she suddenly questioned, _is he taking an interest in me?_

"I'm sure you're enjoying the event," Dr. Cratch said after he was finally settled. "After all, I am the one who planned it, and I am an excellent host."

Jane said, "Yes, it's a lovely party," without letting a hint of disgust show through. _Arrogant little creature, isn't he?_ "I must say, the building itself is marvelous, and the courtyard is a work of art."

"Yes, yes, the architects did a fine job with all of it." Dr. Cratch waved one hand as if to swat that topic away. "What is your opinion of the people, though? Do they intrigue you?"

"The people?" Jane asked, secretly suspicious. "There are many interesting people here, it's true."

Dr. Cratch nodded his head, as if she'd said something incredibly wise. "Yes, and you would know, I'm sure. The way you've been circulating the room, you must have met all of them at one point or another!" Jane's blood ran cold. _He's been watching me, and for a while it seems. I wonder what he thinks he knows..._ Dr. Cratch continued, "It's almost as though you're looking for someone in particular. Did someone arrange a scavenger hunt without me?"

Jane laughed, an empty polite one she'd developed when her father brought her along to his business dinners. "Oh no, I just love meeting new people, that's all. For instance, I've never met someone of your species before." Jane leaned toward the doctor slightly, as if she wanted to know nothing else in the world more than the answer to her next question. "If you don't mind my blunt manner, where are you from?"

Dr. Cratch chuckled. "Bluntness is actually quite refreshing in some ways. Very few at these events bother with any sort of honesty, so even a rude question has its merits." He leaned in a little as well, like he was inviting Jane into a secret. "I come from a world practically all my own. There are very few others in the universe like me, and that is for the best, for if there were more of us, what need would the universe have of anything else?' He leaned back again and said, "But really, my story is a boring one. I'd like to hear yours. I'm sure it's full of mystery and intrigue, like the best sort of detective novels." He had no face with which to smile, but Jane somehow knew he was smiling anyway.

Jane kept calm, even though Dr. Cratch obviously knew more about her than she wanted him to know. After all, the only people who would want to know who she really was would be the Felt, and therefore it was highly likely that this doctor was a member of their ranks. He could even be one of its leaders - after all, he claimed to be the host of the party, and the Felt had some sort of connection to the party itself. In that case, this was the man she'd been looking for all night, and he'd decided to walk up to her all by himself. She almost wanted to thank him for making her job easier.

That was obviously not a smart plan, though, so she just leaned back and smiled calmly. "Nothing all that interesting," she said in an off-hand tone. "The baking business is a rather simple one, after all."

"Ah yes, I believe I heard mention of your business interests," Dr. Cratch replied politely. "I wouldn't consider it a simple one myself, but you must be the expert. Do you find it to be dangerous?"

"Dangerous?" Jane asked cautiously. That sort of question could lead anywhere.

"Yes, dangerous." He leaned forward again, his tone darkening. "I'm sure there are plenty of competitors, after all, and it's so easy to sabotage a loaf of bread, don't you think? Just a little _touch_ ," he tapped the table with one finger, "of something that doesn't belong, and suddenly the whole thing is unworkable."

Jane frowned slightly. "Bread is more robust than that," she said, not understanding what he meant by his metaphor.

He paused, and Jane got the impression he was staring at her, searching her for something she wasn't entirely certain was there. Finally, he said slowly, "Perhaps it's just a matter of perspective. Things that seem sturdy and immovable can be surprisingly delicate, after all, and no one notices until the danger is already past and the damage is done." He leaned back again and his focus seemed to shift out over the party, as though he'd said his piece and was done talking.

Jane searched for a topic to keep up the conversation, since she needed to know what the Felt were up to. "Do you know any interesting fairy tales, Dr. Cratch?" she asked suddenly.

He seemed almost as surprised by her question as she was, given how quickly he turned back to her. "Fairy tales?"

"Yes, fairy tales," Jane said resolutely. She didn't know what had inspired the question, but somehow she felt it was the proper way to continue. "I noticed the garden has some interesting sculptures of figures from myths and legends, and so I was wondering if you knew of any yourself?"

Dr. Cratch seemed dumbfounded, and she couldn't blame him. The question had come out of nowhere, after all. Finally, he said, "I know many fairy tales, but I'm sure you know them as well. You grew up on Veil, after all."

Jane ignored the shiver down her spine - _Does he actually know where I grew up, or was that just a stab in the dark?_ \- and said, "But I'm sure your culture has some sort of mythological hero, doesn't it? Every culture I know of has at least one."

"No, no heroes," he said impatiently. "There's just the reaper and marauder, that's it."

"The reaper and marauder?" Jane asked innocuously.

Dr. Cratch seemed frustrated as he said, "Yes, the one who will destroy the universe and rule over it as the lord of all time." He looked around, as though he wanted to be done with the conversation and move on to bothering someone else.

On her part, Jane finally understood why she'd felt the need to ask about fairy tales. Remembering the words of the leprechaun in the park, she asked, "Is this reaper coming, or is he already here?"

The doctor whipped his attention back to her, his entire countenance unspeakably angry for just a moment. In that moment, Jane wondered if she'd gone too far, and if her investigation was going to end right then. "You - " Dr. Cratch quickly bit off whatever he'd planned on saying and calmed himself down, though the anger still bled through his words. "I suppose you are more familiar with fairy tales than I was expecting. I commend you for that - it's not often I don't have full knowledge of what someone knows." He stood, and despite his height, he still felt very dangerous as he said, "Of course, there's many things I do know about you - the surname Egbert, for example. That's a rather uncommon name. In fact, I suspect if you searched the entire planet, you would only find two humans with that last name."

Jane straightened her back, refusing to back down. "It's not as rare as that, you know. I'm sure there's a few in every major city on the surface."

He nodded coldly, as though her words marked some sort of agreement between them. "Yes, of course. It would be foolish to think otherwise, wouldn't it? Now, I have other duties to attend to, so I must leave you. If you require anything else, don't be afraid to ask. After all," he stated quietly, the simple words turned into a threat, "I am an excellent host." He bowed his head slightly and walked away into the crowd.

Jane leaned back in her chair and started to breathe again; it felt like she had stopped at some point during their conversation, but she had no idea when. She looked at the table and saw her empty glass was gone, but the full glass Dr. Cratch had brought her was still there. _Someone must have collected the glass during our conversation,_ she thought uneasily - she hadn't thought she'd been that focused on the doctor, but in hindsight she almost certainly had been. He'd deserved every second of that focus, though, as it was a dangerous game she'd just played.

She stood, leaving the full glass where it was. His remarks about "sabotaging bread" still made little sense to her, but accepting a drink from her enemy would have just been stupid. Now she weaved through the other guests, trying to find Terezi. It was important to let the legislacerator know what transpired between herself and Dr. Cratch, as it would probably mean danger for both of them.

She searched for some time, but Terezi and her eye-searing dress were nowhere to be found. _Why the hell is she so difficult to find the one time I'm actually looking for her?_ Jane thought crossly. Almost as if they were responding to her thoughts, the emergency alarms began blaring overhead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jane's dress loosely inspired by this picture: [x](http://www2.pictures.stylebistro.com/gi/Mary%2BLambert%2BDresses%2BSkirts%2BFishtail%2BDress%2BUAWJf64DaMGx.jpg)
> 
> Terezi's dress directly modeled off this picture: [x](http://i01.i.aliimg.com/wsphoto/v0/1492805865_1/Real-Sample-Vestidos-De-Gala-Free-Shipping-Strapless-Colorful-Long-Evening-Prom-Dresses-With-Crystal-Leopard.jpg)


	10. Chapter 10

Terezi walked away from Jane, trying to get her emotions back under control. It was slow going, though, since every time she thought about the maelstrom of emotions she was feeling, she hated Jane for evoking them, and that just bolstered the emotions instead of dampening them. _How the hell is a human any good at being a kismesis?_ Terezi asked herself, knowing there wasn't a good answer, and that now wasn't the time to ask it.

Now was the time to stop thinking about her potential quadrant fill and to start thinking about how she was walking towards Feferi Peixes, current heiress to the Alternian Empire and an old friend of a friend from sweeps ago, back when Terezi still lived on Alternia. Any of the other guests would look at Terezi, see her garish dress, and forget everything else about her. Feferi had a memory for faces, though, and she wouldn't understand the danger of calling out to Terezi unless it was explained to her. There were plenty of people who had heard of Legislacerator Terezi Pyrope, after all, due to her stupendous work in the city. Even if her appearance was relatively unknown, her name would definitely turn a few heads.

Terezi marched through the crowd, unafraid to drub a few people here and there if they didn't seem to be getting out of her way fast enough. She came closer and closer to Feferi's bright tyrian, until finally she was just behind the heiress in question. She was deep in conversation with several aliens about intercultural relations, both in Skaia and in the universe at large, which was a conversation Terezi didn't feel like breaking into. Luckily, they were quite close to the food table, so she was able to linger on the edge of their discussion without seeming overly creepy.

The group eventually dissipated, as they always do, and Feferi was left alone for a brief moment. Seizing the window of opportunity, Terezi tapped Feferi lightly on the shoulder. Feferi turned with a polite smile (close-lipped, as other species seemed to find full troll grins utterly terrifying), but that smile grew into a genuine one when she recognized who had tapped her. "Terezi! I wasn't expecting to sea you at all!" Even if it sounded exactly the same, Terezi could tell she had made that pun. After all, the Feferi she knew would never let a perfect opportunity at a pun pass her by.

"It has been a while, hasn't it, Feferi?" Terezi smiled in return. "I haven't read of any major wars or economic collapses, so I assume Alternia is still spinning as usual?"

Feferi giggled. "Oh, it's de-fin-itely spinning all pike! Although it's spinning a liiiittle differently than before, I think."

"Oh? Have you been making some of those changes you used to talk so much about?" Terezi asked.

"YES!" Feferi shouted, drawing the attention of the nearby guests. She blushed and whispered to Terezi, "Oops, I forgot how stuffy these parties get as soon as I saw your face." She laughed, a little cruelly this time. "You never have that problem, though!"

Terezi poked her hard in the shoulder. "Hey, part of the fun of being blind is that I get to be the one to make the blind jokes!" Feferi just laughed harder, and Terezi couldn't help but laugh a little, too. Even though she was the heiress, Feferi had always been bubbly and happy, and it was hard to avoid getting swept up in that attitude.

"So," Feferi said when she was done laughing, "I guess you've done well for yourself! How long have you been living in Skaia, again?"

Terezi tried to figure that out, which was a more difficult task than it sounded, seeing as she had to remember how long ago she'd moved here, and she had to convert that amount of time from Veilian orbits to Alternian sweeps. Finally, she gave up and said, "Between ten and twelve sweeps, I guess." It was close enough for random gossip.

"That long?" Feferi seemed surprised. "I know we haven't been wigglers for a long time, but I can't kelp but feel like it was just a few sweeps ago all of us were playing together on Alternia."

Terezi nodded solemnly. "I know what you mean - I've been here for a long time, but I still think about Alternia a lot, too." The pair stood silently for a moment, thinking back to their time together as wigglers. It had been simpler, in a lot of ways, and yet Terezi didn't want to return to that time. She was surprised to find that she was happy on Veil, even with all the bad things that had happened. Somehow, this was exactly where she wanted to be.

Feeling that the moment was done, Feferi asked, "What has it fin like, being a legislacerator in a mixed city like Skaia?"

"Equal parts overly exciting and incredibly frustrating," Terezi promptly said, making Feferi laugh again. "About that, though..." Terezi motioned Feferi in a little closer, dropping her voice so the other guests around them couldn't eavesdrop over the low buzz of the room. "I'm actually here on a case, and I'm trying to keep my job a secret for the night. Do you think you could help me out?"

Feferi clapped her hands together, her eyes sparkling with joy. "An UNDERCOVER fishion? Of coralse I'll help!" Feferi whispered excitedly. "What do you need me to do?"

"Just don't tell anyone I'm a legislacerator, and follow my lead if anyone asks." That part of business finished, Terezi stepped back and spoke at a normal volume again. "Do you have any plans for your visit to the city?"

Feferi scowled and pouted a little, all at the same time. "Nothing _I_ want to do - it's all offishoal appearances and publicity stunts. I don't even have time to visit any of our friends here." She smiled as she faced Terezi again. "Which is why I'm ESPECIALLY happy to sea you here! Let everycody know that I miss them and I fish I could sea them myshellf!"

Terezi cackled. "I'll tell them the next time I see them!" Feferi rolled her eyes, but she laughed too. After that, she noticed someone across the sea of guests that she needed to speak with. She and Terezi said their goodbyes, and Terezi smelled her swim through the guests like the fishes she'd grown up with.

"A very interesting troll, I'd say," a voice said from behind Terezi. When she turned around, she smelled a black carapacian female. She wore a black and green dress with a large-brimmed black sun hat. In one hand, she carried a cigarette holder with a lit cigarette. Terezi was impressed - it took a great deal of poise to pull off a cigarette holder, and this carapacian was definitely pulling it off. The carapacian puffed on her cigarette a little, giving Terezi a shrewd glance. "There are few people in the universe who could be given that sort of power from a young age and grow up without letting their life be plagued by cynicism and doubt."

"The heiress is certainly one of a kind," Terezi said congenially.

The carapacian tapped her cigarette holder, letting the ashes fall to the floor. "Knowing a troll like that could give someone anything they wanted in life, don't you think?" Terezi shrugged, as if she didn't care about personal gain. The carapacian obviously wanted something from her, and it would be more fun to let her put all her cards on the table than to just drag it out of her. The carapacian smiled coldly and said, "Of course, there's some things a person has to get for herself. Power from an heiress is all well and good, but power by your own hands is something else entirely." She blew out a stream of smoke. "I didn't introduce myself, did I? You may call me BQ." Using just their initials was a common practice amongst carapacians, who often changed what the initials stood for.

"Terrek Polsit," Terezi replied. It was one of her usual throwaway names - she hadn't used this one very recently, so she didn't think anyone would recognize it. BQ didn't offer her hand, so Terezi didn't bother. This was obviously not going to be that sort of conversation. "What sort of power would that be, then?"

BQ tapped at her cigarette again. "Oh, it's different for everyone, isn't it? Some gain power through their relationships, some through the business world, and a few... well, they gain power by knowing which side will win in the end." She started walking away, gesturing for Terezi to follow her. Terezi considered her options quickly. _On the one hand, letting a stranger lead me away from witnesses could end up giving me a bullet in the head. On the other hand, she is definitely trying to sell me something, and I won't know what unless I go with her._ Terezi weighed the two options in her mind, but she knew from the start what she would choose. She followed BQ out of the chamber and further into the embassy.

The carapacian led Terezi through several quiet hallways, stopping in what appeared to be an art gallery. The walls were filled with paintings from famous Veilian artists, and the ceiling was transparent, allowing the visitors an unimpaired view of the stars. BQ stood silently in the middle of the room, and Terezi was never one to stand still and wait for someone else to talk, so she decided to walk around the room instead.

She was carefully sniffing at a piece by a famous carapacian (and about three seconds from licking it to discern just what the blob in the center was supposed to be) when BQ finally spoke again. "You know changing your name isn't really enough to hide your identity, don't you?"

Terezi kept all her attention on the painting, or at least enough to convince the carapacian that that was the case. "I suppose carapacians are better at looking past fake names, aren't they?" Terezi gripped her cane, ready for whatever was coming next.

"It's difficult to say what we could consider a fake name, but yes, keeping the initials of your real name doesn't help matters. Besides, the blind tealblood legislacerator is more famous around Skaia than she thinks." BQ's clicking boots came closer and closer, until she was just next to Terezi. She contemplated the painting as well, possibly trying to see what kept Terezi so captivated.

Terezi laughed. "Me, a legislacerator? I'm just a poor blind girl, how could I possibly bring criminals to justice?"

BQ smiled. It was not a nice smile. "That begs the question of whether the legislacerator in question has brought any criminals to justice herself."

Terezi smiled back, a real troll smile, while she gripped her cane tightly. "I'm sure there are plenty of prisoners who wouldn't even bother asking."

"Perhaps, yes," BQ turned to face Terezi. "Or perhaps there's a better sort of justice than what the legislacerator has been pursuing. A more... _profitable_ kind of justice."

Terezi raised her eyebrows questioningly. "Profit of a personal nature, I presume?"

"Of course. There is no better kind of profit," BQ said. "So, would that sort of justice be of interest to a certain legislacerator?"

Terezi stroked her chin, giving the matter a great deal of thought. If there had been a clock in the room, its ticking strokes would have clearly defined the passage of time, but instead the silence merely stretched longer and longer. BQ kept her attention on Terezi, though, not letting her gaze waver for a moment. Finally, Terezi came to a decision. "Your offer is very intriguing indeed, Ms. Black Licorice! Unfortunately for you, there's only one kind of justice in my world, and I believe you're standing on the wrong side of it."

BQ nodded, as though she'd been expecting that answer. "We'll see which side wins out in the end, then, won't we, Legislacerator?" She walked away, leaving Terezi alone in the art gallery.

For her part, as soon as BQ was out of the room, Terezi left through the door as far away as possible from the one they'd entered from. She was no fool, after all - rejecting an offer like that meant she'd be on the Felt's hit list as soon as BQ found someone to take her out, and that probably wouldn't take very long. Wandering through the embassy seemed like a much better option than waiting around to get killed.

Terezi walked through hallway after hallway, trying to find her way back to the party without running into any Felt members. Instead, she found herself outside the ambassador's office. On a hunch, she tried the door, but it was locked. Jane's voice mocked her in her head - _Bet you wish you had my lockpicking expertise now,_ Legislacerator! - and Terezi scowled before punching through the glass in the door. _I can't believe I'm stooping to breaking and entering,_ Terezi thought as she unlocked the door from the inside and stepped into the office, mindful of the broken glass. _Jane will never let me live this down._

The office was a little cramped, considering who would be using it. One end had a door in it that opened into a much larger space, though, so it seemed this room was more like an office for the dimencetacean's representative than for the dimencetaceans themselves. There were several bookshelves filled with many books (a cursory glance suggested they were mostly lawbooks, with a few cultural handbooks mixed in), and a large desk with a very comfy chair.

Terezi settled herself into the chair as she opened the drawers and rifled through the desk's contents, trying to find any connection between the dimencetaceans and the Felt. _The Felt must have a reason for being here,_ she thought. _The only reason they could have to be here must have to do with the dimencetaceans._ None of the papers she found gave her the connection she needed, though.

Terezi leaned back and sighed. _It would've been too easy, huh..._ She thought about returning to the party, but an idea suddenly came to mind. She opened all the drawers again, but this time she felt around the undersides of the drawers, as well as the sides of the desk where the drawers usually sat. Behind the bottom drawer, taped to the back wall, she found an envelope.

She took the envelope out and examined its contents. It was mostly a pile of papers, with a few pictures tossed in here and there. As she read through the papers, a picture slowly started to form. The dimencetacean ambassador had apparently used his influence at his different posts through the years to set up a small empire of sorts for himself, at great cost to the dimencetacean home planet. The Felt had discovered his deals somehow, and were using that information to blackmail him into helping them achieve their own goals.

Terezi flipped through the sheets, trying to find something that would lead her to the Felt. An envelope finally caught her nose, labeled as it was with emerald ink. Inside was a letter, which Terezi carefully opened and read. It was a short letter (more of a memo really) "inviting" the ambassador to a meeting at the Emerald Mansion to discuss the terms of his contract. Terezi grinned broadly. It was just the thing she'd been looking for.

Terezi gathered all the papers into the large envelope again and carried it out with her. _The ambassador should know not to leave a paper trail, after all,_ she thought as she started navigating the embassy's hallways again.

Spending such a long time in the ambassador's office almost made Terezi forget that the Felt were looking out for her, so she nearly yelped in surprise when a leprechaun with a solid maroon hat came around a corner she was just about to turn. There was no chance she could sidle away, either, as the leprechaun definitely saw her. "You! Where ya been skulkin' around, huh?"

"Oh, I got turned around looking for the load gaper. It's tough being blind in a brand new location, you know." Terezi backed away from the leprechaun, trying to figure out a way to escape the situation.

The leprechaun snorted. "Right, I've got a load gaper for you right here." He stepped towards her, holding his crowbar in a menacing fashion.

Terezi sniffed derisively. "That's a pretty gross idea, actually. Do you even know what a load gaper is?" As she kept up the conversation, her nose was working overtime, searching for anything that could help her.

"Don't need to know, since you won't be needin' one where I'm sendin' ya!" The leprechaun charged at her, and Terezi finalized her plan. She dodged the first sweep of the crowbar and slammed her hand over a button on the wall. Immediately, alarms began blaring all around them - the button she'd pressed was one of the switches placed around low-orbit institutions like this one in case of emergencies. While the leprechaun was distracted, Terezi made a run for it.

It was easier to find the party now - there were plenty of people screaming, after all. _Some people - set off one little alarm that signals a potential seal breach, and they completely lose their heads._ Terezi shook her head in disappointment, but her thoughts were soon occupied by the sound of her leprechaun pursuer still following her.

Terezi burst into the gala chamber just as the leprechaun with the crowbar caught up. The party guests were divided into the sensible ones who were directing the evacuation, and the panicking ones who were screwing up the evacuation by piling into whatever corridor was nearest. Terezi ducked and dodged between guests, trying to put as much space between her and that crowbar as possible.

A hand reached out to grab her as she dodged past an especially hysterical caudatian, and she nearly took off her assailant's head with her cane. Luckily, Jane had very good reflexes and was able to block her strike. The detective pulled her close and, standing almost nose-to-nose with her, yelled, "What did you do?!"

In response, Terezi brandished the envelope of evidence and grinned broadly. "I found the key piece of evidence that will help us stop the Felt, Miss Blueberry Muffin!" Terezi relished the dumbfounded, shocked look on Jane's face. It made her feel like she was dancing on air. "Now, let's blow this orange creamsicle stand!"


	11. Chapter 11

"What the hell happened up there?" The chief stood behind xir desk, palms flat on its surface. Terezi and Jane sat in the chairs in front of the desk, the same chairs they'd sat in when receiving the case in the first place. "I've got a lot of very powerful, very frightened people breathing down my neck, thinking there was some kind of a terrorist attack! You two are my best chance at knowing what went down, so start talking."

Jane sat in her chair, back ramrod straight and hands clenched together in her lap. Between pursed lips, she said, "I have absolutely no idea what happened. One moment, I was investigating amongst the other guests, the next moment the alarms started going off." She shot Terezi a dirty look. "Legislacerator Pyrope then ran in like the hounds of hell were on her heels. After that, we got into an evacuation pod and returned to the planet's surface with everyone else.

The police chief sighed, looking down at xir desk for a moment, then up and at Terezi. "Alright, Pyrope. Here's your chance. Convince me that whatever you did was necessary."

Terezi was slouched back in her chair, as she had been since they were called into the chief's office. Her cane was leaning against the chief's desk, and she still held the dimencetacean ambassador's file. She raised it now and waved it in the air a few times. "These papers I recovered show us the exact path we need to take going forward in order to destroy the Felt. While I was recovering them, one of the Felt's goons tried to kill me. Hitting the alarm was the only way I could be certain of escaping." Her piece said, Terezi leaned back further in her chair, as if there was nothing else to say.

The chief sat down, xir hands near their chin, digesting everything Terezi had just said. While xie thought, Jane fiddled with her hands, while Terezi closed her eyes, almost as if she was going to take a nap if the chief didn't come to a decision soon enough. When xie did, xie placed xir hands on the desk again and looked both of xir officers in the eye (even if it was mostly symbolic in the legislacerator's case). "The only reason I'm not suspending both of you for a few days is because we need this case wrapped up. If you can't keep the rest of the investigation low-key, then I'll have to reconsider." Xie waved xir hand at the door, obviously dismissing them.

Jane stood and saluted smartly, walking out the door in a very stiff manner. Terezi stood and grabbed her cane, giving the chief a lazy salute and a cocky smile on her way out. A few steps away from the chief's door, Jane punched Terezi in the shoulder. "Will you give me that file now, or will I have to wrestle it out of your hands?"

Terezi could practically smell the fire in the detective's eyes - there was no doubt she would take the papers by force if necessary, and Terezi almost wanted to see it happen. Metaphorically speaking, of course. Getting into a scuffle right outside the chief's office would be a very bad idea, though, as wonderful as the idea sounded. Instead, Terezi handed over the file, and while Jane was distracted, she surreptitiously rubbed at the spot where the detective had punched her. _She must put some of that weird human nutritional fortification powder into her baked goods or something,_ Terezi thought begrudgingly. _There's no way that muscle growth could be natural._

Jane flipped through the papers, quickly zeroing in on the most important ones. "The Emerald Mansion, of course! That must be the Felt's headquarters."

"Exactly what I thought," Terezi replied. Jane ignored her as she looked through the papers more. Terezi tapped her fingers against her cane impatiently. When it became obvious the detective had no intention of moving until she'd read the entire file, Terezi said, "I'd appreciate getting my file back, Detective, since I was the one to get it in the first place."

Jane rolled her eyes, but after skimming a few papers one last time, she handed the envelope back to Terezi. "How did you get it, anyway? That definitely looks like the sort of thing I'd keep locked away in a secret safe."

Terezi turned her face away from Jane as she said airily, "Oh, you know. Investigational prowess led me to it."

"Really?" Jane said, her voice conveying her growing suspicion. She stepped around to see Terezi's face, which was still very determinedly pointed at a potted plant in the corridor. "Why do I get the feeling you did something about which you don't want me to know?" Terezi said nothing, but Jane wouldn't back down.

Finally, Terezi gave in and explained how she'd broken into the ambassador's office. Jane seemed torn when she heard the full story. "I don't know whether I should be appalled at the casual destruction of foreign property, or smug because you obviously wouldn't have needed to destroy the door if you had my lockpicking expertise." Jane smirked. "Yes, I'm definitely going with smug on this one."

"Great, I'm so happy for you," Terezi said bitterly. "Now I'm going home. I was attacked earlier, I think I deserve a little relaxation."

Jane frowned. "Don't you want to set up a raid for the Mansion? I want to get that Dr. Cratch as soon as possible."

"Cratch?" Terezi frowned as well, the name almost familiar to her. "Wait, do you mean Scratch? Doc Scratch?"

"No, I mean Cra-" Jane paused, then grabbed the files from Terezi and rifled through them, ignoring Terezi's disapproving shout. She found whatever she was looking for and scowled. "Doc Scratch. Doctor S. Cratch. Damn! I should have connected those sooner, but I was focused on the whole Mansion business."

"Mind explaining what you're babbling about, Detective?" Terezi asked as she snatched the file back again. Jane summarized her encounter with Dr. Cratch, or Doc Scratch as he was known by the Felt. When she reached the end of her story, Terezi could only focus on one thing. "His head was a giant cueball? Really?"

Jane sighed. "Yes, it sounds ridiculous, I know, but it's the truth. Knowing that, the cueball calling card is supremely ostentatious, isn't it?"

"Yes, almost like he was sticking his non-existent tongue out at us and daring us to catch him." Terezi shrugged. "Well, I'm going to go put these files away and go home."

"Seriously?" Jane followed Terezi as she started walking back to her office. "I don't know how you can think of sleeping now when we're so close to catching these crooks."

"Very easily," Terezi replied. "Seeing as I was, did I mention, running for my life just a few hours ago. I'm not going to collapse at my desk for an hour's worth of bad planning." The memories of the last dozen times she'd done just that rose quickly to mind, but she ignored them.

Jane scoffed. "Well, you may go home and collapse all you like. _I_ will stay here and keep working, while the information is still fresh and my brain is not clouded by sleep."

"Yes, well, I'll be here bright and early to wake you, then," Terezi said, giving the detective her troll grin. "I wonder, do you like cymbals, or perhaps a two wheel device horn would be best?" Jane rolled her eyes and peeled off to return to her desk without another word. Terezi cackled and shouted, "Or maybe I'll learn a moving human ballad to serenade you with!" The detective made a very rude gesture as she walked away, making Terezi cackle even louder.

* * *

Jane's phone rang shrilly, waking her up from a deep sleep. She fumbled through the blankets on her bed, trying to find her way to her glasses and her phone. She found the phone first, and answered it with a groggy "Hello?"

"Hi Jane!" Her cousin John's perpetually excited voice answered back.

Jane sat up a little more - John wouldn't call her without a reason, so she couldn't just put him off and go back to sleep. "John? What are you doing up at this time?" She squinted at the clock to make sure it was definitely not a normal time for people to be up, but the light coming in her window gave her a better sense of the hour. "The sun is just starting to rise."

John chuckled. "Uh, it's like, three in the afternoon here, Jane. Time zones, remember?"

"Oh, right." She rubbed at her eyes a little and tried to get her brain moving a little faster. "Well then, what's up?"

Jane heard some shuffling on the other end. "We got a package today and it's sort of addressed to you? It says 'Jane Egbert' on the address, at least, even though it's definitely addressed for here. I guess it could be some kinda package for Nanna, but she's been dead for a while now and I don't think there's anyone around who would still be trying to send her packages..."

Jane ignored her cousin's rambling as her mind shucked the last bits of sleepiness through sheer terror. Knowing he wouldn't stop for a long time if left to his own devices, Jane interrupted him and said, "John, what's the return address for the package?"

"One sec," John said, and a few scuffling sounds came through from his side of the call. Jane tried to remember to breathe as she waited for John to come back. Finally, he picked up the phone again and said, "It's just a sticker of a cueball. Isn't that weird? I didn't think the postal service would deliver if there wasn't a real address there. Maybe that's just the human postal service, though, it looks like this one might have come through the carapacians or -"

"John, get your father and get out of the house. Leave the package wherever it is and go," Jane commanded as she jumped out of bed and quickly got dressed.

"Jane? What's wrong? What's in the package?" John sounded worried now. Jane couldn't blame him.

Fully dressed now, Jane went into the kitchen to find something she could eat on the go as she said, "It's a message from someone I'm investigating at the moment. He's a very bad man, and he apparently has no qualms about attacking civilians to get what he wants."

"Oh." John started moving around as well, clunks and scrapes suggesting he was packing some essential things. "Does this have something to do with that embassy blowing up? Cuz that's been all over the news, you know."

Jane groaned. "Of course it is. Damn that troll..." Jane trailed off, realizing she really didn't want to explain Terezi to John. Not yet, at least. "Yes, it is related to that, although the embassy didn't blow up. Someone just hit the alarm as a distraction for something else."

As John spoke again, Jane could hear the smile in his voice. "A distaction, you say? Wow, that must've been like one huge prank! Whoever pulled that alarm is like a pranking master."

"I really hope she never hears you say that, or she'll never shut up about it," Jane said as she left her apartment, locking the door behind her. "Are you out of the house, John?"

"Yeah, I'm heading over to Dad's office so he knows not to go home. We'll stay in a motel or something while this gets figured out." John's easy-going tone shifted a little. "We'll be fine, Jane. Go catch the bad guys."

Jane sighed in relief. "Thanks, John. I know I can count on you to stay safe. I'll get some officers over to your place right away."

John laughed, and somehow it barely sounded strained at all. "Hey, maybe I can work this into my routine somehow! Like all the same set-up, only instead of a bomb or anthrax or whatever, the package just had something rigged up to throw pies at whoever opened it."

Jane giggled a little. "You know, you might have something there. I can't wait to come back and watch your show when you've got that part added in."

"It'll take a while to really get it right. You can't rush comedy, you know."

"Of course, I wouldn't dream of forcing you to put out a shoddy routine." Jane walked down the street towards the station. "I have to go now, John. Stay safe."

"You too, Jane. Give us a call when it's all settled, okay? Love you."

"I love you, too. Bye." Jane hung up as she entered the station. A magtrain was just pulling in, which was perfect timing. Jane chose to stand for the relative short trip to the precinct, as her nerves were too jumpy to sit for even that long.

When the magtrain arrived at her stop, she practically flew out the doors and ran to the precinct. She went straight to her desk, ignoring all the surprised officers she passed - it was a couple of hours before her shift was supposed to start, after all. When she got to her desk, she called the police in John's district, ordering a bomb squad to his family's address. Waiting until she got to work had been torturous, but her work phone had a direct line to any station on the planet, while her personal phone would have gotten tangled in machines and red tape.

She had to shout a few people out of their complacency, but they finally agreed to heed her demands. When she was done handling that crisis, she turned to researching the Emerald Mansion and anything related to Doc Scratch she could find. _That bastard, thinking he can threaten my family like that..._ There was little she could find on the alien himself, whether she searched Doc Scratch or Doctor Stanley Cratch. What little she did find, she pored over obsessively, memorizing as much as she could.

Looking into the Emerald Mansion also yielded very little, but every reference to the Mansion's layout was saved and studied. She kept note of every unsolved crime that seemed to involve the Mansion, as well - it wouldn't hurt to keep an eye out for any leads on those cases, as long as they were going to be there.

Time passed as Jane studied her enemy, finding any weaknesses she could. She only realized how much time had passed when a tapping cane drew her attention. "Did you wake up early just to ruin my fun, Detective?" Terezi asked dryly.

Jane had almost forgotten about the legislacerator's childish threats. She'd actually gone home shortly after Terezi, when she realized just how exhausted she really was. Falling asleep at her desk would have been fine any other time, but Jane wouldn't put it past Terezi to memorize some sappy ballad for the sole purpose of embarrassing her. Last night, the idea of Terezi coming in early and finding her plan ruined had been wildly amusing. Now, it was just a distraction.

Jane stated, "Doc Scratch sent some sort of package to my cousin's house. I don't know if it was a bomb or poison or just his idea of a sick joke, but I want to take him down _now_."

Jane almost expected the legislacerator to make fun of her, but instead she pulled up a chair to Jane's desk. "Well, then, by all means. Let's make this happen."

* * *

The flames flared in the fireplace of the secret meeting room of the Emerald Mansion. Doc Scratch reclined in one of the chairs, his diminutive legs just barely reaching the ottoman, while Snowman paced behind the chairs. Her frantic smoking created a cloud of smoke near the ceiling, but Scratch didn't bother to tell her to stop. He knew she wouldn't, after all.

"There's too much that's gone wrong," Snowman said. "Those two should have either joined us or died up there, and instead they're both walking around freely. Damn Crowbar and his useless hide!"

Scratch chuckled. "I told you, my dear. Attempting to kill those two would be utterly useless. But of course, you ignored my advice and let them gain valuable information about our mission." He shook his head and clucked disapprovingly. "Once He has truly arrived, I can't imagine He'll be impressed with your actions."

"Ha!" Snowman stopped her pacing to face Scratch. "And what about you? You got tricked into revealing yourself to that silly human. I don't think he'll appreciate that any better."

"Ah, but I clean up my mistakes, you see." Scratch gestured with his hands as he spoke. "Convincing the detective in person proved to be a fruitless endeavor. I suspected it would be so, but it was harmless to try. The gift I sent to her cousin, on the other hand, is rather less harmless."

Snowman frowned. "A gift? Oh Scratch, you idiot, don't tell me..."

Scratch's tone became even smugger than usual. "Yes, I imagine the detective won't be interested in fighting back now that she understands the danger she puts her loved ones in."

Snowman smacked her forehead in disgust. "Or she'll just be more determined to take us out now! If this little trick of yours ends up costing me - !"

"It won't," Scratch stated definitively. "Our plan will go off without a hitch, He will arrive with all his customary power and glory, and we will obtain our righteous rewards as befits our service."

As if punctuating his remark, an explosion rocked the Mansion. Shortly on its heels came the sound of gunfire. Snowman slammed her cigarette holder down on the table next to her customary armchair. "See?! Now those officers are here already, and we're nowhere near prepared for them!"

Scratch leaped to his feet, anger radiating from his body. "Impossible!"

Another spat of gunfire contradicted his conviction. Scowling, he stalked out of the room, grabbing his weapon from his inner pocket. "I can't trust those incompetent buffoons to take care of anything," he said on his way out.

Snowman followed him. The silent war between the Felt and the police was now out in the open, and it would take a great deal of cunning to get through it unscathed.


	12. Chapter 12

Jane sidled up to the corner of the hallway, motioning the four officers with her to come close behind her but to wait before moving forward. When everyone was set, she peeked her head out carefully to see if any Felt members were waiting. A rapid burst of machine gun fire answered that question, and she quickly ducked her head back into safety. "GL! You're up!"

GL, a black carapacian who went by the name of Grenade Lobber on missions like this, moved forward with one of her prized grenades in hand. She tossed it down the hallway, and a few seconds later smoke filled the area. Jane motioned the other officers forward, and they advanced into the smoke.

There was just the one Felt member waiting for them, a leprechaun wearing a striped green hat. Jane gave him a solid punch to the noggin to distract him so that GL and Detective Branston could pin him down. Once he was tied up and no longer a danger to the officers, the group moved on.

Jane was having a hard time believing how easily they were raiding the Mansion. It was dangerous - they had machine guns, after all! - but it wasn't nearly as difficult as she'd envisioned it. The labyrinthian passages were slowing them down, of course, but Jane was certain they'd be able to flush out every member and recover any evidence of wrongdoing without any noticeable losses.

Her thoughts turned to the legislacerator, who was leading her own team of officers through the building. They'd worked together for hours on creating the perfect plan, which had turned into another form of competition. When they were waiting outside to begin the operation, Terezi had also bet that she would bag the leaders herself, before Jane had a chance to find them. She hadn't needed the kick in the pants, of course, but Jane was determined to find and arrest as many Felt members as she could, so that Terezi couldn't take credit for the whole thing.

Her team came to another staircase - they were on the third floor already, and so far their group had been reduced by half because they kept splitting their forces to search more efficiently. Jane wasn't concerned, though. None of the small scuffles they'd gotten into had been more than any couple of officers could handle, so as long as no one was left alone, they would all get out fine. Jane ordered GL and Detective Branston to stay with her as they went up the stairs, leaving the other two officers to continue exploring the third floor.

Jane's team had barely gotten twenty feet down yet another corridor when a leprechaun with a solid red hat crossed from one room to another in front of them. He didn't seem to notice them, but Jane and her comrades crept forward cautiously anyway. There was no need to be sloppy, after all.

A large green, white, and maroon blur slammed through one wall, into Jane, and past another wall, practically laughing in the face of their caution.

* * *

Terezi strode through the Mansion's halls as if they belonged to her, and in a way, they did. The police took custody of any property owned by criminals, after all, and the person who owned the Mansion was certainly a criminal. Therefore, the Mansion was now in the police's hands, even if its current owners didn't think so.

She'd left her team behind a long time ago - legislacerators almost always did their best work alone, and she wasn't in the mood to lead others. No, Terezi was on the hunt, and the greatest huntresses stalked their prey alone.

She kept her nose open for the slightest whiff of black licorice or vanilla milkshake past the sour green apple of the hallways. The first difference in color she came across, though, was as she entered what looked like a meeting room with a long table in the center surrounded by chairs. The color was a streak of bright red that came from a striped red hat worn by a big leprechaun sitting at the table.

He jumped up at Terezi's entrance. She grinned at him, partially because he didn't seem to have a weapon, but mostly because she knew it would unnerve him. "Surprised to see me, Mr. Candy Red?" She brandished her cane as she took a few steps into the room.

The leprechaun's answering grin didn't shake her. The flamethrower he lifted from under the table, however, did wipe the grin off her face. She leaped down behind the opposite side of the table when he let off a giant burst of flame in her direction. _Okay, that's enough grandstanding, Pyrope,_ she berated herself as she kept aware of the leprechaun's location.

He started circling around the table, so Terezi moved as well, keeping the table between herself and the flamethrower. He didn't stop until they'd rotated through half of the room, but when he realized what she was doing, the leprechaun jumped onto the table itself and jogged towards her end.

Terezi knew she had nowhere else to hide, so she jumped up, giving him an obvious target. He fired the flamethrower at her again, but she ran just ahead of its range around the table, closer to the leprechaun. Along the way, she grabbed one of the chairs, and when she was nearly level with her enemy, she swung the chair at him with all her might.

The thrown chair landed right on target, throwing the leprechaun off-balance so he stumbled off the table. Terezi scrambled over the table as fast as she could, kicking away his weapon before he recovered from the fall. Now he'd lost his overwhelming advantage, and the fight was obviously in her favor again.

The leprechaun swiped at Terezi's legs, but she jumped back, making sure to keep herself between him and the flamethrower. He got back on his feet quickly, now towering over the legislacerator. She just grinned again, though - facing off against larger opponents was more exciting, anyway.

He swung at her expertly, but she parried with her cane and gave him a return jab to the torso with the dragon-head end of her cane. While only a glancing blow to a leprechaun, it did distract him enough that she could push him towards the table. He fell back against it, his hands bracing against its edge.

Terezi shoved her cane across his throat, and before he could kick her away, she jumped up onto the table behind him. The additional height gave her better leverage, and the leprechaun's strength was neutralized. She pulled up hard on her cane, waiting until his struggles grew weaker and weaker, until finally he collapsed.

She gave it a few extra seconds before releasing him, but since he collapsed in a limp pile when she did, she figured it was safe to move on. She considered taking the flamethrower with her, but its trigger mechanisms seemed too complicated to figure out quickly and safely, and while it would have been totally cool to set fire to everything like the dragon who had raised her, it was sadly impractical. Terezi gave the weapon one sad little pat before leaving the room and beginning her quest again.

* * *

The hulking leprechaun carrying Jane crashed through another two walls before he tripped and rolled to a stop, releasing her. Luckily, he'd actually been taking the brunt of the impact through each of those walls, but Jane still felt a little woozy when she stood up. Both she and the leprechaun stumbled around for a few seconds, trying to regain their sense of balance.

When her head felt like it wasn't constantly tipping over again, Jane took stock of her surroundings. The leprechaun seemed to have brought them both into some sort of storage room, or maybe it was an office; there was plenty of clutter piled around, like an old globe of some alien planet, but there was also a desk with a very old-fashioned typewriter and bookshelves filled with books. Chairs and couches were also scattered around the room, and obviously there was the brand new hole in the wall. Looking through the hole, Jane could see Detective Branston and GL facing off against the leprechaun with the solid red hat.

Jane's assailant set himself in a stance, bringing Jane back to her own problem. _They'll be fine,_ she thought as she prepared to face off against the big leprechaun. Looking at him again, she frowned. _Why does he seem familiar to me?_ She finally placed him as one of the leprechauns who'd been chasing her and Terezi in that warehouse. _Gosh, that feels like it was months ago._ "So, losing us at the warehouse wasn't enough of a shame for you? You really wanted to get beaten up in person?"

His angry expression didn't change. "You and that troll broad fucked Sawbuck up, and Itchy and Fin ain't been the same since then, neither! I'm gonna take you out now, and the boss will finally get off our backs about screwin' up that night!"

Jane shook her head. "It's a shame you don't know when to stay down." The leprechaun answered by lunging at her with one large fist. Jane ducked away, and twisted further out of the way as his second fist swung at her. She tried punching him in his side, but her lack of knowledge about leprechaunic anatomy meant she couldn't aim for any vulnerable organs, so he easily shrugged off her hit.

Jane stepped quickly out of the leprechaun's immediate range, barely missing getting by his counter as he twisted around, his large size belying his agility. He forced Jane to stay on the defensive, pushing her backward throughout the room. Jane weaved around the chairs and couches, trying to figure out an opening.

As she circled near the desk, Jane came up with an idea. She bobbed under another of the leprechaun's punches, which brought her close enough to the desk to pick up the typewriter. She swung it out as a shield just as her opponent attacked. His left fist collided with the typewriter and he howled in pain.

The force behind the leprechaun’s blow forced Jane against the desk, but while her back complained, she still felt better than the leprechaun seemed to feel. He recovered faster than she expected, though, and while his left hand was out of commission, his right still had plenty of power. He thrust his right hand at her throat, obviously intending to try and choke her. Jane rolled backwards across the desk to dodge the grab, causing him to double over on top of the desk.

The leprechaun roared in anger and jumped on top of the desk, which creaked dangerously. Jane noticed the creaking, but she didn't have enough time to think of how to use it before he was jumping off again, this time aiming to land right on top of her. She quickly crawled through the desk, standing up when she got to the other side. The leprechaun landed and the entire floor shook.

Jane frowned and stamped on the ground, feeling how the floor cracked and groaned. A plan started to form in her mind, and as the leprechaun jumped over the desk again, she began to run away from him, not bothering to keep her eyes on him. She trusted her instincts to tell her if she needed to dodge - all of her focus was devoted to pushing down the bookcases in the room.

Each bookcase she pushed down changed the room's geography, creating hills and valleys over which the leprechaun chased her. Jane began jumping from the high points to the low points, forcing him to do the same if he wanted to keep up with her. Each time he jumped, the floor groaned a little louder, and soon it began creaking ominously. The leprechaun didn't notice, but Jane did.

She forced him to jump down on the same spot over and over again, stressing the support beams, until finally she stood right in the center of the weak spot. She spent a few moments catching her breath, a break she could only take because the leprechaun was doing the same up on his bookcase, and then she gave him her best impression of Terezi's challenging grin. "Is that... it?" She panted quietly, trying to hide at least some of her exhaustion.

The leprechaun took one more deep breath, then he took one giant leap off the bookcase at her, his fist winding up for a direct hit. Jane jumped back as far as she could, meaning all of her opponent's force went straight into the ground. The abused support beams finally collapsed, taking half of the office's floor with them. Jane managed to scramble out of the danger zone, but the leprechaun was obviously not nearly as lucky. He fell straight down to the floor below, his groans floating up to Jane's ears.

Jane sat back and breathed deeply, letting her heart rate fall back to an acceptable level. Now that she was not in immediate danger, her body started complaining about all the aches and bruises she'd picked up during the fight. Nothing seemed too badly damaged, though, so she walked back towards the hallway she'd started in.

The other officers was nowhere to be found - probably the leprechaun with the solid red hat had tried to run, and they'd decided chasing him down was more important than helping with her fight. She couldn't tell which way they'd gone, so she just chose a random direction and started walking, figuring she'd run into something important eventually. After the battle she'd just had, it was hard to be concerned about sneaking around, after all.

* * *

Terezi had finally worked her way up to the fourth floor, but so far nothing seemed any different than the previous three floors. She heard distant crashes and gunfire, but her side of the mansion seemed quiet. It was almost unnerving.

She sniffed around every room she passed, trying to find something of interest. Everything was just green, green, and more green, though. She felt like her nose was being overwhelmed by the stale smell of green. That explained why the blow to her head seemed to come out of nowhere.

Terezi fell to her knees, her head filled with pain. She got to her feet as quickly as she could and turned to get a better whiff of her assailant. Standing in the doorway she'd just passed was a leprechaun wearing a solid green hat, which explained why he'd been able to sneak up on her. He was just as green as the surrounding mansion, so he'd faded into the background of scents as Terezi passed by. He was holding some sort of statue. It was small, but obviously it had been an effective weapon.

Now that she had smelled him, though, he couldn't fade into the background again. It was a little tough to keep track of him when he kept still, but in that case, all she had to do was swing her cane where he had just been, and she was practically guaranteed to hit him. She swung her cane at his legs first, dropping him on the ground, and then she hit him in the head with an overhead swing. He slumped against the floor, so either he was knocked out or he was willing to pretend in order to avoid further pain. Terezi was fine with that, since it meant he probably wouldn't follow her.

She continued down the hallway, rubbing softly at the spot on her head where he'd hit her. _That's gonna be a nasty bump for a while,_ she thought. She'd have to avoid any further hits to the head, as one was bad enough.

The monotony settled in again as she walked through the halls. The Mansion seemed to go on forever - it was hard to believe she was still within the city's limits, let alone inside the same building she'd entered. Nothing stood out in the sea of green until a leprechaun-shaped blur flew out of a doorway in front of her and smacked into the wall, where it resolved into a leprechaun wearing a striped purple hat. He slid to the floor and stayed there, either too dazed to stand or simply knocked unconscious. Jane stepped out of the doorway he'd flown through, shaking out her hand.

"I didn't actually think you'd let that one connect," she said to the unmoving body. Terezi gaped at her, unable to comprehend what she'd just smelled. Jane turned and noticed her standing there. "Legislacerator! What a pleasant surprise!" She spoke as if they'd just run into each other at the nutritional supply store.

For once, Terezi couldn't think of anything to say. The detective smelled like she'd been in a rough fight or two, but her eyes were fierce with victory, and she wore a triumphant grin on her face. Terezi was very distracted by that face. Luckily, Jane started walking away before Terezi could suggest that they stop in one of the rooms they passed by and explore what that triumphant grin tasted like. Terezi shook her head, ignoring the surge of pain from her bump, and followed the detective, keeping her thoughts firmly focused on the goal at hand.

The goal at hand was taking down the Felt, of course. Any other goals would have to wait until later.

Terezi tried to gather her wits from where she'd dropped them earlier and gain the upper hand again. "You know, I was going to be surprised if you took down anyone at all, but that guy back there was pretty tiny, so I guess it must not have been that difficult."

"He was a little small, yes," Jane agreed nonchalantly. "Of course, I dropped another one through a floor, so I suppose they average out."

Terezi blinked. "Did you just say you dropped one... through the _floor_?"

Jane looked at Terezi out of the corner of her eyes. "Yes. Yes I did."

"That's... impressive," Terezi had to admit. She hastily added, "For a human, of course. I, on the other hand, faced down one with a flamethrower."

"Really?" Jane looked alarmed for a second, as if Terezi was still in the middle of that fight as opposed to safely walking next to her. Her brain seemed to catch up with reality quickly, though, as she shrugged off the danger. "That must have been exciting, I guess."

"Yes, it was. Quite dangerous, too." Terezi tried to keep her tone aloof rather than defensive, but she didn't think she achieved it, judging from the smirk on Jane's face. Scowling, she chose to keep quiet rather than fight a losing battle. Jane was obviously willing to do the same, since she was currently winning anyway.

The pair walked through the halls in silence, Jane searching with her eyes and Terezi with her nose. The slightly better range gave Terezi the advantage, as she could tell if someone was on the other side of a closed door if she concentrated hard enough. That was why she stopped Jane with a cane across the chest at a door that looked identical to the others they'd passed.

Terezi answered Jane's accusatory glare with a whispered, "Someone's in that room." Jane accepted that with a nod and walked to one side of the doorway. Terezi took up her position on the other side of the doorway and put one hand on the knob. She waited for a 'ready' nod from Jane, and then she opened the door.


	13. Chapter 13

The first thing Terezi smelled clearly when she opened the door was a mass of white. The small room was almost stuffed to the brim with mannequins that wore the same hats as the Felt members she and Jane had been fighting against. There was also a flat table with deep red stains, with a smaller table nearby that held various surgical implements. Across the room, at another table, an older leprechaun with a striped yellow hat sat sewing something together with a sewing machine. He started talking without turning around. "I'm tellin' ya, it ain't worth fixin' nobody 'til the cops are outta here, so unless youse about to die, ya better clear outta here."

Jane gave Terezi a look of confusion, a feeling Terezi definitely shared. Neither of them really knew what to do after running into someone who didn't immediately attack them. After a moment of silence, Jane cleared her throat, causing the leprechaun to turn around. When he saw the pair of officers, he leaned back in his chair. "Ah, damn. You already got this far, huh? Knew I shoulda got better protection than Die and Eggs, but the other boys were just so damn eager." He sighed and put his hands up in surrender. "Well, I ain't gonna fight you. I'm just the doc and the tailor, I ain't got any funny business up my sleeves."

Terezi lowered her cane - the leprechaun didn't seem to be a threat, and even if he was, Jane was closer, so she'd be attacked first if anything shady happened. "A tailor? I didn't realize mobsters needed one of those desperately enough to keep one on a permanent basis," Terezi said.

The leprechaun spread his hands non-threateningly. "The second likes us lookin' sharp, for when the boss finally gets here."

"The second?" Jane asked. "I assume that's Doct - I mean, Doc Scratch?"

"Yup, that's him. Tiny little slavedriver freak, but it's a well-paid job and I ain't got much to complain about, 'cept the size of my office here." He snorted. "He says he ain't got the room to spare on this floor, but I ain't allowed to move further down in case I'm needed up there." He gestured vaguely towards the ceiling. "I tells ya, I think he just likes screwin' with people that ain't got a chance of fightin' back."

Terezi tapped her fingers on her cane impatiently. "And what would be upstairs that would require your assistance?"

"Go up and find out for yerself," the leprechaun said, relaxing back into his chair again. "I'm stayin' outta this one." He fell silent, holding out his hands again. Since he was obviously done talking, Jane moved forward and quickly restrained him to the chair.

When that was done, she turned to Terezi and said, "Well, I suppose we have one last floor to investigate, don't we?"

"Indeed we do," Terezi replied. "Feel free to follow me."

Jane snorted and pushed past her. "I'm not foolish enough to follow a blind person, thank you."

"That hurts, Detective! I thought you trusted me!" The pair left the room, their voices fading as they walked down the hallway.

Stitch swiveled in his chair a little. The human had been kind enough to leave him some mobility, probably as a thank-you for his helpful nature. It didn't really matter - he'd meant what he said about staying out of this fight - but it was a nice gesture.

A figure stepped out of the shadows near his desk. She'd been hiding in a blind spot of the room, the furniture hiding her from the detective's sight, and her black and green coloring hiding her from the legislacerator's sense of smell. "I see you've declared your loyalties, Stitch," she said.

Stitch snorted. "Is it loyalty, or is it common sense? Any fool with halfa brain could tell Scratch ain't lastin' through this one, Snowman. No point in keepin' with him anymore."

"Indeed." Snowman stepped closer to him and undid his restraints. "Well, he did get one thing right. Any good criminal group needs impeccable style. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Definitely don't hurt none," Stitch said. "We gettin' outta here, or what?"

Snowman pressed a panel in the wall, opening a secret passage. "Oh, we are certainly getting out of here."

* * *

Jane rolled her wrists as she and Terezi climbed the last set of stairs. She was feeling a little sore from fighting the huge leprechaun with the maroon hat still, but she was ready for whatever was in store for them.

The stairs led to a plain hallway. Unlike all the others in this mansion, this hallway was very short, and it didn't have a hundred doors leading off from it. There was just the one door at the end. Jane clenched her fists, and she saw Terezi readying her cane. In just a few steps, they were at the door. This time, Jane took the pleasure of opening it.

The door opened onto a large and open room, devoid of any furniture. The ceiling slanted and came to a point in the center, but nowhere in the room did it come lower than six feet, so Terezi and Jane would both be able to maneuver through the entire space. The walls to their left and right had several windows, through which Jane could see the Skaian landscape. It was just becoming twilight, and the moons were halfway through the sky already. It was a beautiful sight.

The only other door in the room was in the wall opposite theirs, and in front of the door was Doc Scratch. He stood with his hands behind his back, his stance evoking cultural memories of dutiful butlers or gracious hosts. His subservient pose was undermined by the cold anger rolling off him, though. "Detective Crocker, Legislacerator Pyrope. You've finally joined us. I was expecting you much sooner." His voice still held bits of the smug, slimy tone he'd used with Jane at the embassy, but barely contained rage lay underneath every word.

Terezi cackled. "You should never expect anything from a human, much less this one!" Jane rolled her eyes - apparently even facing off against the leader of the Felt wasn't dire enough to dissuade Terezi from flirting with her.

Doc Scratch didn't move an inch, whatever reaction he had or didn't have masked by his blank face. "Indeed. I know it's pointless, but I must ask if you won't simply accept the outcome I've foreseen and leave now."

"Leave? After you've attacked my friends and family? No way!" Jane yelled.

He nodded his head. "As I thought. Well, it's your funeral." As he finished speaking, he pulled his arms out from behind his back. In one hand was one of the white pistols Jane had found at the warehouse. He aimed straight at Jane's head and fired.

As soon as she saw the pistol, Jane was already jumping out of the way. His second shot came fast on the heels of his first, and there was no cover in the empty room, so Jane was forced to keep her mind on dodging his attacks, rather than planning one of her own. Doc Scratch seemed to be focusing all his attention on her instead of Terezi, though, who was using the opportunity to sidle closer to the alien. When she saw what Terezi was up to, Jane taunted Doc Scratch, trying to keep his full attention. "Is that the best weapon you were able to get? I know you're small, but a larger gun isn't that much harder to use, you know."

Doc Scratch fired at her again, forcing her to dive aside, but their gambit worked. Terezi pulled her cane apart, revealing the sword she'd been carrying all along. Jane stared. She'd thought it odd that Terezi always used her cane as a weapon, since most officers preferred to use something with a little more oomph, but then again, she herself usually stayed away from weapons, so it hadn't seemed reasonable to ask. Hiding a very sharp sword in her cane was exactly like the legislacerator, though; Jane should have known she would do something like that.

Terezi drew her sword back and thrust it straight through Doc Scratch's body, grinning in the face of her triumph. No blood flowed from his wound, though, and Scratch didn't seem hurt by the sword in his torso at all. He turned his pistol on Terezi. "Let's see if you can dodge a bullet at point-blank range, Legislacerator," he said as he cocked the pistol.

Before he could pull the trigger, Jane tackled him to the ground. She tried to wrestle the pistol out of his hand without firing it or stabbing herself with the legislacerator's sword, which was still stuck in his body. Jane finally managed to grab the pistol and throw it across the room, but now she couldn't escape Scratch's grasp. He was weirdly light and floppy, but he was also incredibly strong.

Jane wrestled with Scratch, trying to find some submission hold that would actually work on him. His limbs bent in unexpected ways, though, and he didn't seem to have a neck she could grab in a chokehold. While she was trying every technique she knew, he was trying to smash his head into her face at every opportunity. The large sphere was made of something incredibly tough and dense, and Jane knew it would be incredibly painful if she let one of his attacks connect.

Suddenly, Doc Scratch was picked up off of Jane and tossed a few feet away. Catching her breath, Jane saw Terezi holding the sheath part of her canesword. "Sorry, Detective," Terezi said facetiously. "I know you were having fun, but I was feeling a little left out."

Jane laughed humorlessly. "Oh, well, we couldn't have that. You can have the next dance, how's that?" Terezi snorted, a little too tired to give her a full cackle. Jane pushed down her disappointment at that and focused on Doc Scratch again, who was standing near one of the windows. She and Terezi started walking towards him, as Jane said, "Will you give up already? There's nothing you can do, we're going to win."

Doc Scratch shook his head and pulled the legislacerator's sword out of his body, tossing it away. "Oh Detective, you know absolutely nothing of what's going on, so don't pretend as though you do. Lord English is already here, and there is nothing you can do to stop him from asserting his domination over this world."

Jane clenched her right fist. "That was your last chance, Scratch." Aided by a running start, Jane slammed her fist right in the center of Doc Scratch's head. He flew straight back and through the window, broken glass following him all the way to the ground. Jane carefully poked her head out the window and saw that he'd landed just next to an officer, who seemed to have spilled her coffee. She didn't feel much sympathy for either of them.

"Jane." She turned around and saw Terezi waiting at the other door, her sword hidden within her cane again. "I believe we have one last room to investigate, unless you'd like to join him in flying lessons."

Jane shook her head and joined Terezi at the door. "No, I think it's time to move on. Lead the way, Legislacerator."

Terezi smiled and asked, "Foolish enough to follow the blind now?" 

"No, just ready to use you as a meat shield," Jane replied. Terezi laughed, a tired and shortened version of her usual cackle, and opened the final door.

* * *

The final room of the mansion was smaller than the previous one, and much less empty. The floor was strewn with toys and dolls, some of which were ripped in half or missing a limb. One corner was filled with paper and art supplies, with a pile of beginner's art books nearby. In the center of the opposite wall, a bed was set under a circular window, and on the bed lay a small green trolloid creature with a skull-like head and red-swirled cheeks.

The creature lay on its stomach, waving its legs in the air, and stared at the intruders. It asked, "Who the fuck are you?" and dropped the pen it had been holding. In front of it was a piece of paper with a half-finished drawing. "I told Scratch nobody was supposed to fucking bother me, so you've got a lot to answer for right now."

Terezi couldn't believe her nose. Beside her, the detective tilted her head a little, brows narrowed in confusion. "I'm sorry, are you... part of the Felt?" Jane asked, the question obviously necessary but incredibly bizarre to ask.

"I'm not just part of it, I'm the leader!" The creature stood up on its bed, hands on hips and elbows proudly jutting out. "My name is Caliborn, and I'm gonna be Lord English someday!"

"A cherub," Terezi said, naming Caliborn's species. "Scratch did all of this for a fucking cherub."

Jane looked at her. "What on earth is a cherub?"

Terezi was too done with the situation to ridicule Jane for her ignorance. "Cherubs are a very ancient, very powerful, and very rare species. They have long lifespans, and they are highly secretive about their young, so the only cherubs anyone has met have been adults." Terezi gestured at Caliborn, who was still standing in the same pose. "His head gives it away, though. That thing must be a young cherub."

Jane still seemed confused by something. "How do you know he's a cherub? I've never heard of them before."

"Cherubs are worshipped by some species as bringers of death and life," Terezi said. "Aradia's completely obsessed with things like that, so I heard all about them a while back. She even has a cherub skull in her collection."

"Ah. So Doc Scratch was planning on raising this cherub and using him to take over Veil?" Jane paused for a moment. "That... sounds like a really stupid plan."

"You're telling me. Sheesh, all of this over a fucking cherub..." Terezi sighed and walked towards Caliborn. "Okay, wiggler, you're coming with us," she said, reaching out to grab him.

"No!" Caliborn shouted, diving under his pillow for something. He stood up again, a pistol in his hand. "I'm the fucking leader of the Felt, you can't take me anywhere!" He aimed the gun at her and fired.

Terezi felt herself being pushed out of the way, and a burst of red exploded in her vision. She sat up and smelled the detective lying on the floor, clutching her right shoulder in pain. Terezi knelt by her side, grabbing some of the stuffed toys to hold against the wound. "What the fuck was that, Detective? Did you think I was too weak to handle a little gunshot wound?" Terezi spat the words out, furious at Jane for her moronic action.

Jane smiled grimly. "Actually, I figured saving you from getting shot twice in one day would make me the winner here. You owe me your life twice over now, after all."

Caliborn spoke up again, sparing Terezi from having to choose between knocking out the detective for her own good and trying to initiate incredibly sloppy makeouts. (The detective wouldn't have liked either option, but that was part of the point.) "You see? That's what you get for messing with Lord English, bitch!" He raised the gun again, but Terezi had had enough. She stood and smacked the weapon out of his hand with her cane, then smacked him upside the head on the return swing. The hit knocked him to the bed, and he seemed to pass out.

After a few seconds, though, he sat up again, now with green cheek swirls. "Um, hello." His voice seemed higher and softer now. "I'm sorry, but have we met before? I'm afraid I don't recognize you. My name is Calliope."

Terezi shook her head. "I am so done with this shit. Come on, we're getting out of here." She helped Jane wrap up her arm with an impromptu bandage made from some of the cherub's clean clothes. Then, she picked up Calib-, no, Calliope with one arm and supported Jane across the waist with the other. The trio walked back down through the mansion, ignoring anyone who tried to talk to them along the way. Terezi and Jane both asked questions of Calliope, though, and she answered every one she could, endearing herself to the tired officers in the process.

When they finally got outside, the police chief was waiting for them. "Legislacerator Pyrope! Detective Crocker! We were about to send out a team looking for you." Xie motioned some officers forward, and they carefully helped Jane to the medics.

Relieved of one burden, Terezi dropped Calliope on the ground as carefully as she could. "This cherub's called Calliope. She's sweet, but don't knock her out unless she's restrained. Take care of her." Terezi saluted lazily and, with the last of her duties completed, passed out where she stood.


	14. Epilogue

Paperwork. The bane of a legislacerator's existence. Today, though, Terezi didn't mind the paperwork so much, as she was gathering her evidence for the trial against the Felt.

It had been several weeks since the raid of Emerald Mansion. After a couple days of rest, Terezi had completely recovered and begun preparations for the trial. The defendants were all the members of the Felt that they'd been able to arrest, including Doc Scratch, who'd survived his fall from the fifth story.

There were still some known members missing - the leprechaun with the solid purple hat hadn't been found yet, and the older one with the striped yellow hat disappeared sometime after Jane and Terezi had tied him up. No one had seen BQ again, either. That still left over a dozen criminals to bring to justice, though, and Terezi was excited to put the case to rest. Besides, she'd leaked a few key details about the missing Felt members to a certain pirate she owed a favor to, so she was fairly certain some sort of justice would be done - it wasn't worth worrying about what kind. At the very least, she knew she kept her promise.

Someone knocked on her door, and Terezi called out "It's open!" while she continued to organize her papers. Aradia came in, bouncy and happy as ever. "Ready for the big day, Legislacerator Pyrope?"

"Just about," Terezi replied. "Ready to testify, Mediviscerator Megido?"

"Always!" She sat on Terezi's desk, looking over the evidence. "Is all this from just your part of it?"

Terezi shook her head, still focused on her task. "No, most of it is from the crimes committed before Detective Crocker and I were assigned to the case. I convinced the chief to let me handle all of it, and xie agreed I was the best choice."

"How is the detective doing? I'm very glad she didn't end up on my table, you know!" Aradia laughed at her own joke.

Terezi smirked. "The detective is absolutely hating her enforced bed rest, and I am loving every minute of it."

Aradia laughed again. "I'm sure you are! So there haven't been any more complications?"

"Nope!" Terezi looked up and grinned. "The surgery went quite well, and they believe there should be no lasting damage to her nerves, so Jane should be able to return to full duty shortly." She began packing away piles of papers in her briefcase. "I await that day with bated breath, I assure you. No one else around here could possibly keep up with me! Now, as soon as I've collected everything, I'm ready to go."

"Excellent!" Aradia hopped off the desk and waited for Terezi to finish packing up. When she was ready, Aradia opened the door and grandiosely gestured Terezi forward. "After you, Legislacerator Pyrope!"

"Why thank you, Mediviscerator Megido!" Terezi grinned and stepped through the door, Aradia quickly following behind.

They walked to the courthouse, which was only a few blocks from the precinct. Terezi strode confidently into the courtroom, well aware that the trial was due to start in under half an hour and that most of the other players would have been there hours earlier. She did not care.

The defendants were all piled on their side of the room, and Terezi took some personal satisfaction in giving them a very friendly wave hello. Several of them had to be restrained from attacking her. It was very fun to watch.

In the public seating area, she saw Calliope sitting with Jane's friend Roxy. About a week after the raid, Roxy had come in to grab something from the office for Jane and run into Calliope waiting outside the chief's office. No one knew what to do with the cherub child, since the cherubs were almost impossible to contact and no one had personally met one in years.

After spending a little time with the cherub girl, Roxy was smitten. She took matters into her own hands by volunteering to take care of Calliope until a more suitable arrangement was found. When the complications surrounding Caliborn were brought up, Roxy waved them off with an easygoing shrug. "We'll figure it out, 'kay?" She'd repeated that over and over while she held Calliope's claw in one hand, the cherub herself almost hiding behind Roxy's legs.

Terezi walked to her side of the courtroom and began to spread her materials out. She would be arguing her case alone, as she usually did. No one could possibly legislacerate as well as she did, of course. _Well, the trial part, at least,_ she admitted privately. _I have to say, Detective Crocker does have some skill at the investigating part._

The main doors opened behind her, and a commotion suddenly rose up. Terezi turned and found the center of the commotion was Jane, wheeling herself in on the electronic four wheel device the human hospitals insisted on using. She was surrounded by Roxy, Calliope, and other associates, all trying to talk to her at once.

Terezi abandoned her trial preparations and marched down the center aisle. Seeing her approaching, Jane met her halfway. "Hello, Legislacerator Pyrope. A good day for dispensing justice, isn't it?"

Terezi ignored the attempt at small talk. "You are supposed to be in the hospital, Detective. I remember your human doctors being very clear about that."

Jane waved a hand dismissively. "Pish-posh. I have important testimony to give, and you couldn't possibly win this trial without it."

"I could win the trial with a bit of shoestring as my only evidence," Terezi countered. "I certainly don't need your help."

"Well, I suppose you could probably muddle through somehow," Jane said archly. "I don't know how elegant of a trial it would be, though."

Terezi stepped forward, putting her hands on the four wheel device and leaning over the detective. "Do you think your insignificant testimony could really make that much of a difference?"

"I really do." Jane stared into Terezi's dead eyes, a playful smirk dancing across her face, before she reached up, grabbed Terezi by one horn, and pulled her down into a rough kiss. After a moment's surprise, Terezi abandoned herself to the kiss, placing one hand behind Jane's neck and keeping one hand on the four wheel device for leverage. They drew apart only when the detective pulled back, her gasping breath proving she needed the air.

Terezi tried to frown accusingly at Jane, but her reflexive grin made the task difficult. "Are you trying to distract a legislacerator from the performance of her duties?"

"You're such a great legislacerator, I'm sure you couldn't possibly be distracted by a simple kiss," Jane retorted, one hand still gripping Terezi's horn.

She _was_ distracted, but Terezi won the case anyway.


End file.
